


Murder She Wished

by TheDivineDark



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (Comics), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, In-Character Negan, Manipulation, Negan in all his Savior of the Universe Glory, POV Third Person, Seduction, Tags & Warnings TBA, The Sanctuary, pre-season 7
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:53:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23947249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDivineDark/pseuds/TheDivineDark
Summary: Siann knows exactly what Negan is.Even from her lowly position in the Santuary’s carpentry shop, she sees. She sees the class systems that benefit those that relish the dirty work. She sees the hierarchy that belittles the civilians. And she certainly sees Negan.Keeping her head down and ignoring the existence of the Saviors’ vicious, voracious, sociopathic leader is all well and good until his tempestuous attention shatters the sliver of peace she’d found for herself.Oh yeah, she sees him alright. And she just so happens to think that the Sanctuary would be better off without him.Unfortunately, this new world doesn’t have much mercy on idealists.
Relationships: Negan (Walking Dead)/Original Character(s), Negan (Walking Dead)/Original Female Character(s), Negan/Negan's Wives (Walking Dead)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 65





	1. Spine

Siann smoothed a work-calloused thumb along the handle, meticulously triple-checking for any sly imperfections. It wasn’t that she had any kind of stellar work ethic or anything - heavens forfend – she was just petty. Any hint of a fissure in the wood and the blacksmiths would have an excuse to berate her if it broke during their less-than finesseful attempt to attach it to the business part of a blade. And that would most _certainly_ not fucking do. There were only two qualified blacksmiths in the Sanctuary, and because they earned more points than the average worker, they thought they were all fucking that. Any terminal screw-up during their tenure was always pinned on a lesser shmuck. If blades fractured during the quenching process, one of their apprentices was to blame. If something went wrong with the handles, or if the balance of the blades was off when they were tested, hell came calling on Siann and her colleagues.

At the end of the day, all she really wanted was the upper hand, if and when she was arguing back and forth with whichever one of them came to shriek at her. She figured it was a fairly small ask in today’s selfish world.

The upper hand had been particularly shit to her as of late, she thought, reaching for the tin of outdoor fence and gate varnish they used to finish off their creations. In fact, she’d been actively avoiding the upper hand’s attempt to flick her off the table entirely. It cast a dismal shadow over her and the rest of the workers, as black as the leather glove it wore.

Absolutely _fuck_ the upper hand.

The brush she always snagged for herself – the good one that she cleaned after every use to keep the bristles soft and obedient – had mysteriously wound up in Pete’s hand today. Flicking her eyes God-wards, she opted for one of the rags to use instead. Messier, for sure, but the varnish would go on smoother. Siann re _fused_ to give either of those dicks an excuse to come down on her.

‘ _Isn’t even their God damn fucking department,’_ she groused internally. But because they earned more than her boss, George, they figured they had some sort of authority. Didn’t seem to matter that the tools the carpenters used were made in their forge. Nope. The blacksmiths made the weapons, the weapons went to the Saviors, and that was that. 

She knew it drove George nuts too – in that quiet, straight-spined, steely-eyed way of his. He never argued back at them, never raised his voice when they did. He just stared them down until they ran out of steam and stomped back to their sweaty little hole. Siann admired that about him. She liked to think she was pretty level-headed, but George was something else. There was so much in that stare, like he was saying ‘ _I know yer talkin’ shit, and you know yer talkin’ shit - so I’m just gonna let you keep talkin’ until you feel like shit about it.’_

In the beginning, it frustrated her to watch him take their verbal lashings like that. She wanted to see him take them down a peg – him being the only one among them who could get away with disrupting their comfy status-quo. Thing was, she didn’t _get_ it back then. George did. The blacksmiths earned more for a reason. The last thing he wanted was to turn Negan’s eyes his way.

She thought he could make a really good leader if he ever felt like it. Everyone would be much better off without that dark shadow looming over their heads.

“You look like you’re a hundred miles away,” Lisa grinned, hobbling to where Siann sat, waiting drearily for the varnish to dry. “Back in bed, I reckon, judging by them circles under your eyes.”

Siann smirked back, not bothering to hide her weariness. “Shit night’s sleep, Lis. What else is new?”

Lisa winced, shifting her weight to her good leg with a laboured exhale. Siann grimaced sympathetically, pressing the small tin of varnish into Lisa’s stubby fingers when she gestured for it. Lisa had been in the Sanctuary for four months now, hauled in by a group of Saviors, now short half a leg and three family members.

Still, she was consistently friendly and upbeat, managing to appear cheerful despite the dark circles ringing her eyes. She flashed her yellowing teeth at Siann before shuffling back to work. Siann’s eyes followed her, catching the fact that she was limping more so than having difficulty with her artificial leg.

“That still hurtin’ you?”

Lisa’s mouth twitched flat as she placed the varnish on her table. “Doctor says it’s healin’ well.” She twisted on her good foot and sank onto her stool, fingers clamped around the edge of the table.

Siann squinted. “But it’s still hurting.”

Lisa shrugged, gaze drifting to her tools. “There’s nothin’ wrong with it. I’m just makin’ it worse in my head is all. Doc says that can happen sometimes.”

“Trouble with your leg, Lisa?”

The scent of sawdust, varnish and old leather hit Siann’s nose as George stepped to her side, twisting a finished handle into a cloth. Siann’s lips creased into a guilty smile and she reached for her whittling knife as his eyes pressed down on her.

“Leg’s workin’ just fine, George. Nothing I can’t handle,” Lisa grinned. “I ain’t missin’ work or anything.”

“That’s good to hear,” George’s deep gravel-over-stone voice rumbled, in as close to an upbeat inflection as he ever spoke. “Negan came to me yesterday. Told me the Saviors are planning some big excursion.”

He glanced to his left to catch Siann’s darkening glower. There were several members of the Sanctuary with little love for the man in charge, but that was unsurprising. In George’s experience, no politician ever had total support. No one leader could make everyone happy. Those that weren’t needed someone to blame. Those that were didn’t care who was at the top.

But things were different. Being at the top was different. And disputing a leader with Negan’s influence was…unwise.

“You watch it with that,” George rumbled, gesturing to her expression with one calloused finger. “It’s fine to have your thoughts. But when they make it onto your face, people notice. They remember. Can’t expect too much from folks these days.” He rubbed the cloth over the length of his handle again, casting an eye from her creased brow to her grimly-curled lips.

Siann let her face fall flat, nodding understandingly. She couldn’t help but feel a little proud when George nodded back at her. Maybe one day, if she lasted, and was older and wiser, she could be as zen and mature as him. It was a nice thought, one that gave a tug at one corner of her mouth and made her feel like maybe this purgatory might be worth grinding through. Her optimism lasted twenty three seconds. Beyond George’s broad frame, she spotted one of the blacksmiths advancing towards them, and her eyes rolled up reflexively. A fist appeared behind George’s shoulder, clutching a deeply fractured handle.

“Problem, Oliver?” George asked, following his usual protocol, the picture of ease. Once again, she envied his demeanour. How easy it must have been for the blacksmiths to storm into this workshop and scream at people like her, a scowling brat, or Lisa, whose eyes had popped wide with dread as soon as she’d spotted him. Siann leaned back against the edge of her table and huffed a low sigh.

This one, she figured, she could let her thoughts fly with. There was no love for Oliver in this room. She slouched into her seat and waited for the onslaught she was about to sit through.

Oliver’s nostrils flared as he lifted the handle higher. “Which one of you made this?”

Lisa had. Siann had been using a darker wood all day and didn’t do that fun little twist design Lisa etched into the handle’s end. If he had spared a few seconds to cast a glance at each of their work stations he would have figured that out. But there was no glory in that for Oliver, Siann supposed. Why learn for yourself when you have people to yell at when you want information? Much more corporate. Negan probably appreciated that.

She already felt her patience dripping away. Oliver was a thirty two year old who seemed like he’d never left prep school, and he thoroughly relished every opportunity to lay down the law. Siann hated him most days, but today, it seemed, she was _extra_ not in the mood to hear him.

Still, when she saw Lisa’s lips quiver together to peep out a confession, after just defending her work to George, Siann groaned internally.

“That’d be me.”

She cursed herself the second she said it, when Oliver’s wide blue eyes zeroed in on her and his chapped lips opened. Even so, it made her feel good to see Lisa’s shoulders sag in relief. She didn’t want to see George staring into the side of her head, so she focused on Oliver’s shiny hairline and let herself drift away, flicking on all her pre-recorded responses on the way out.

She tracked him as he paced in half-circles, ranting, flailing the broken handle in the air for emphasis. She heard George sigh next to her, clearly none too fussed about the same scenario he saw every other day. Lisa twisted guiltily in her stool.

“The Saviors are up my ass!” Oliver seethed. “Rush order, they said! Every weapon to be inspected - old _and_ new! Do you have any idea how much work that is - how _long_ it’s going to take?”

“No,” Siann responded flatly. It was hard to pity him as he went on. She could appreciate a heavy workload and all, but when he hurled his fistful of handle pieces onto her table with a loud, echoing clatter, she figured he’d survive without her sympathy.

“I need a machete handle _this afternoon_! What am I supposed to do about that, huh?”

Siann had a brilliant, terrible idea.

“Have one right here,” her lips said. Her thumb gestured over her shoulder to the handle halves still sat drying on her table. Her eyes glinted when he stomped forward and snatched one up. Those mischevious lips pressed together when Oliver’s fingers closed tight around the tacky varnish, half-dried and sticky.

He recoiled with a disgusted groan and whipped the carving out of his hand, a hiss gusting through his teeth when it remained dangling from one of his non workplace-compliant wrist-length shirt sleeves. Siann pressed her fist to her mouth to trap the laughter tickling the back of her throat. Lisa had to turn away when Oliver gripped the wood with his clean hand and yanked it free, dashing it onto the table and wincing furiously at both his sticky hands.

Derek in area B, neighbouring Siann and Lisa, snorted helplessly. His attempts to smother the sounds with an impromptu coughing fit as Oliver purpled finally pushed a bubble of laughter past Siann’s lips. Oliver’s glare locked on her.

As his chest began to swell, arms held emphatically away from his body, Siann knew he was about to blow.

He advanced on her, neck flushed red with rage.

“You _incompetent bitch_!” He roared. All sounds of work in the room dulled. Siann rose fluidly, paced forward a step and straightened her shoulders. Maybe she deserved a tap to the wrist for that little stunt, but she wasn’t about to let him humiliate her. She hadn’t planned to go causing trouble, but she wouldn’t sleep right if she didn’t stand up for herself. Or, at the very least, face the situation with some dignity.

“You ought to go wash your hands, son,” George said coolly. He took a step forward, pressing the backs of his index and middle fingers under Siann’s collarbone. He towered over both of them. “Get back to work, girl.”

His fingers pushed against her insistently, placing the out on a silver platter. Siann grit her teeth. She eyed Oliver’s puffed-out chest and put a foot back grudgingly. Dipshit was just gonna twist this into a win for himself no matter what she said or did. No use getting in shit with George over it. He probably wasn’t too pleased with her to begin with. She didn’t want to make it worse.

Grudgingly, she shuffled back a few steps. George tapped his palm against her shoulder; approvingly, she thought. At the very least, she could maybe count on his contempt towards Oliver leading to a pass on the whole debacle.

Oliver displayed just how well-earned that contempt was when he sensed himself beginning to lose footing with the situation. “Back to work?” He huffed incredulously. “I should have her _fired_!”

He was blowing smoke out his ass. Siann knew that. George knew that. Even Lisa, anxiously gnawing on her knuckle, knew that. Oliver wasn’t about to go knocking on Negan’s door over what Siann could blow off as an accident. Still, it was a pretty slimy play, and she wasn’t impressed.

She was saved from doing something stupid, like opening her mouth, by the sound of clothes rustling and bodies shuffling. All other sounds ceased. Lisa heaved out of her seat and lowered herself gingerly to the floor. Out of the corner of her eye, still focused on Oliver, Siann saw Derek do the same. Understanding twisted in her gut before it registered in her brain. It was only when George went to one knee and Oliver turned around, eyes widening in realization, that she spotted him in the doorway.

Siann had only seen Negan up close a handful of times. He’d been down to the carpentry shop once before. She’d seen him make announcements from the stairs in the furnace room. He had strolled past her in the hallway as she crouched, pressed against the wall, watching his leisurely pace from under her hair. Now, he stood with one shoulder leaning casually against the doorframe. Lucille reclined against the other.

Negan had this sense of ease about him, kind of like George did – a self-assuredness of sorts. Siann wondered, as Oliver plunged to one knee, leaving her standing alone under that sweeping, languid stare, if it was this shared quality that made them both leaders. Both of them commanded respect from the room, and kept the wheels turning under the assuredness that they could handle a situation. Siann sank to her knees, catching Negan’s smirk on her way down. Teeth and a tilt of his head.

George wasn’t a particularly exuberent guy. A low huff of laughter from him was a rarity. He was more presence than person sometimes, Siann thought, a lot like the man lifting himself away from the doorframe. George just had more in the person department. His expressive moments were quiet and infrequent, but they were genuine. Negan’s relaxed grin didn’t touch his eyes.

“ _Well_ , well well,” he drawled.

He strolled into the room as if he didn’t have a care in the world, staring into the distance like he was out for a walk, surrounded by nature instead of almost two dozen kneeling people. In that instant, Siann hated that self assuredness. George wore it like a well-tailored suit. Negan wore it like a gaudy king’s robe, draped regally over his shoulders, drawing devotion and protecting him from harm. He’d used it to surround himself with five wives and a treasure trove of luxuries. Derek had heard from a savior that Negan and his women shared a hot shower. Siann couldn’t even imagine that any more.

However, at least when Negan was exulting in his own power, he wasn’t looking at them. In the next instant, Siann wished for just another moment of his luxuriating. The bat swung down from his shoulder and a sharp whistle cut the air as he made his way towards George and Oliver. Towards her.

Fuck.

Siann made every effort to stare at his boots as he stepped into the space in front of Oliver, rearing back on his heels. He said nothing, made no gesture, just let them keep kneeling. Siann’s teeth ground together. The unsettling aggravation set her pulse throbbing in her jaw. Their time was his. The ground they knelt on was his. Everything they touched was his. As far as he was concerned, the whole wasted world was his.

She really fucking hated this guy.

“As you were,” he barked suddenly. The people beneath him startled back into action. Oliver practically sprang to his feet as noise returned to the room. Siann took a moment longer, letting a sigh slip by under the radar. She rocked back onto the soles of her shoes and made to stretch back to her feet when some quick little movement dragged her stare down. A glistening dark spot stained the floor near Negan’s boot. Her eyes flicked up and saw, up close, that Lucille was dark and dripping.

Blinking the viscous gore out of her sight, Siann rose. She’d killed the dead. Killed people, too. Nobody after the Saviors found her, though. It was something she’d come to peace with. She even thought about it sometimes, like a workout to keep her murder muscles in shape, just in case. Still, seeing Lucille bathed and draped with blood and viscera had her hackles raising a little.

“Now, Oliver,” Negan said, eyeing the rod-spined man. “Who, exactly, were you wanting to have fired?”

Fucking _fuck_.

Siann’s back and shoulders ached at how tightly she stiffened up. They twinged at her efforts to stay still and stand tall, especially when Oliver turned to face her and opened his mouth.

“This _young lady_ right here, sir.”

The words _young lady_ raked down the back of her neck. When she tore a sharp stare from Oliver’s face, she found herself instantly pinned down.

Negan was looking right at her.

Siann managed to keep her face flat despite the primordial dread squeezing her throat. She’d forgotten, until his twinkling gaze slid unabashedly over her skin, that while she was deeply aggravated by him…she was equally as _frightened_ of him.

He had an iron, she’d heard, that he scorched in the furnace and used on people when they broke his rules. It hadn’t happened during the eight months she’d spent there – but she’d seen the last guy it happened to. He’d come by the carpentry shop once, when she was still pretty new. She could recall the tight clench in her stomach when she first saw his scars. The skin on the left side of his face warped and bubbled, not fully healed. It varied in colour from red to black to white, scabbing in some areas. The hair at the side of his head had been seared right off, including the outer end of his eyebrow.

He was terrifying to look at, and he knew it. He’d kept his head lowered, spoke quietly, and left as quickly as he could under a barrage of stares. It had made her feel guilty to gawk, but she had _never_ seen anything like it. That moment had never left her memory. She still remembered how her heart had plummeted into her gut and churned there, how her whole body jerked with the shock of it. It was the moment she’d first doubted her decision to stay. She’d doubted it just about every moment since.

Right now, she downright regretted it.

Her brain short-circuited as she fumbled for any ideas on how to react to the situation. Negan said nothing, just stared at her as her pulse pounded anxiously in her temple. She struggled to keep her posture loose when all her body wanted was to clench up defensively. It didn’t help when his eyes darted up to hers suddenly, half-lidded, half-smiling.

FUCK.

“And why…” Negan murmured huskily, those dusky eyes sparking with intrigue. “Would you want to do a thing like that, Oliver?”

Siann watched the twitch at the corner of his mouth as he blinked his gaze down again. It snapped to Oliver, who flinched almost imperceptively at the sudden scrutiny. He cleared his throat and stood square-shouldered, clearly psyching himself up to project a vibe of confidence rather than the forcedly-casual statue struggling not to squirm that Siann had opted for. His lips opened once and said nothing as, for the first time that Siann had seen, his mouth failed him.

“I…because, I…”

Negan lost patience quickly, brows drawn up in mock-sympathy as Oliver’s cheeks, already flaming, further darkened from the stress. Instead, he whirled on his heel.

“Why don’t you tell me, George?” Negan cut Oliver off just as he’d managed to grind out half a sentence. “Why on earth does Ollie here want to deprive your eyes of this _darlin’_ thing on the daily?”

“Just a bad day at the office, sir,” George said evenly, hooking a thumb into a grubby denim belt loop.

“Well, what happened?”

Siann thought she caught a bit of humour in the brief twitch of George’s brow. “He touched wet varnish.”

Oliver wheezed indignantly.

One side of Negan’s face lifted in mild amusement. “Is that so.”

George’s head dipped in a nod.

“I was… _misled,_ to believe that it was dry,” Oliver said, looking every inch like he was trying to play the assistant manager in the situation – trying to stand to the side of Negan and take part in the impending evaluation of the employee’s misdemeanours.

Negan lifted his gloved hand and cocked a loose finger at Siann. “By her?”

“Yes sir.”

Siann couldn’t decide if her body was burning up or clammy and cold. Fear and common sense warred with her petty, fist-clenching fury as that arrogant fucking _slug_ gave her the side-eye – a silent but clear ‘ _you’ll get it now.’_

She realized that she was doing a pretty terrible job of heeding George’s warning about keeping her feelings to herself when Negan cleared his throat to reclaim her attention and her eyes remained pinched as they flicked back front and centre. Her face smoothed out fairly quickly when Negan’s jaw tilted, his lips pursed thoughtfully and he paced forward, right into her personal space.

To her credit, Siann managed to hold both eye contact and her position – likely due to the fact that she couldn’t have used her legs if she’d wanted to. It felt like there was a disconnect in her brain, the same way she’d felt when the first reports of dead men walking reached her ears. It wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. Corpses couldn’t have been cannibalizing people…and this dangerous, face-melting tyrant couldn’t have been looming over her with the power to do whatever the fuck he pleased. _Whatever_ , including turfing her out of her job, just about the only thing in the world that made her feel something close to happy.

So, with that denial, Siann managed to hold her ground.

“Is that true, my dear?” Negan lilted, voice low. He stood about half a foot from her and at least a foot above her, crowding her in, trying to get her all claustrophobic, she figured. Her skin prickled as he leaned in even closer. “I _know_ you wouldn’t lie to me…”

He was _so_ close, his breath ghosted over her forehead. His body shifted, and she felt the very barest prick of one of Lucille’s barbs catching slightly in the fabric of her jeans.

So Siann didn’t lie to him.

“He was adamant about needing a machete handle. I said that I had one. Never said it was ready.”

She’d never had what people called an out-of-body experience, but Siann figured in that moment that this was as close to one of those as she’d ever had. Her voice, so cool and steady, sounded like it was coming from someone else. She knew that her body was locked tight and stressed, but she couldn’t really feel it. Even her fear had ebbed away slightly – only _very_ slightly – but enough that she could keep her face empty.

Negan flicked another deeply perusing gaze from her brow to both corners of her mouth. A gleaming row of teeth pinched his lower lip, one eye squinted very slightly, and his shoulders squared back as he straightened up to his full, bestriding height.

“Huh,” he pondered.

“She deliberately tricked me.” Oliver’s voice reached her through the paralysing daze of their stand-off. “Several of my colleagues, _and_ I, have had trouble with her…attitude.”

Negan finally, _finally_ looked away from her.

And Oliver’s mouth just kept on mouthin’. “In f-“

To his credit also, Oliver too managed to keep himself on both feet when Negan’s hand clapped down suddenly on his shoulder – even if his eyes did clench shut very briefly.

“Well, George? What say you about this so-called attitude?” Negan drawled.

“Never been anything I’ve had trouble with.” George’s arms crossed over his chest. “She’s a good worker.”

At any other time, Siann’s little heart would have swelled up with pride at the praise. But now, all she could do was stand her ass there and wait to see if Judge Negan was about to bring the gavel down on her hard enough to crack a couple bones.

“Well alright then,” the judge decreed. Then, lightly: “Back to work, Oliver.”

Then came another first as, the only time since she’d known him, Oliver mumbled an affirmative and trudged his way back to the forge without another word.

Judging by the way Lisa’s mouth popped open, she was just as astounded as Siann.

“A good worker, you say…” Negan mused. “How good?”

“Very” was the only elaboration George supplied.

Negan’s lips stretched back over his teeth. “Cool,” he said breezily.

Suddenly, with a deft twirl of his wrist, Lucille swung upwards. The dark dead blood on her was still so fresh, the movement dotted deep red against the grimy white of Siann’s tank top.

It wasn’t the blood or the surprise that finally made her protective wall of denial quake. What pulled the shallow huff of breath from her was Negan’s reaction: a smile as predatory as she had ever seen, big and broad – one that finally lit up his eyes.

Siann’s face stiffened into stone.

_That loathesome fucking monster._

He passed the bat into his left hand with a quick, practiced toss, and cradled her business end in his gloved palm with what Siann could only describe as reverence.

“I was gonna have you do this for me, George, but if the little lady’s as good as you say she is…well, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Negan extended his arms.

Siann stood dumbly for an embarrassingly long moment, her brain sputtering. Because… _surely_ not.

This _thing_ , this…this glorified phallic splinter. She’d heard stories about this from the day after she stumbled through the Sanctuary’s gates - the extension of Negan’s arm, the thing he used to herd the huddled masses, something she’d only seen at a distance…now held right under her nose.

Negan cocked his head up with a smirk as her cautious fingers closed around the handle.

Oh, surely _fucking_ not.

His loving grasp dropped away, leaving the weight of it resting in Siann’s hand. Her arm moved robotically, bringing itself to a more natural position in front of her body. Her head followed its lead, lifting to look up at Negan again – at that dark dead grin.

 _This can’t be real_.

“See, my girl here is in need of something of a makeover – been seeing a lot of action lately what with the problems we’ve been having with redirect. Usually I’d take care of her myself, of course, but I have an unholy crapshow of a meeting to attend. _So -_ clean her. Sand her down, spruce her up. And, most important…” A tingle chilled Siann’s spine as she watched the gleam in his eyes die right in front of her, his veneer dissipating in one icy instant. “ _Be. Gentle_.”

Siann exhaled slowly. Dragging the corners of her mouth upwards, she crafted a dainty, placating smile.

“It’d be my pleasure.”

Every instinct in her body rammed against that wall of denial when her chin was pinched lightly between warm, supple leather. Negan angled his head, curled his lips, and nodded.

“ _Yes it would_ ,” he breathed.

His cheeks hollowed as he gave a low whistle. Dropping his hand from her face, he spun on his heel and made his exit with just as much panache as he’d entered with. His whistling echoed tauntingly down the hallway as oxygen returned to the room.

Siann grimaced with recklessly open disgust, dashing the back of her hand roughly against her chin.

Aside from some feeble perfunctory work noises, the room was silent, stunned. Breathing somewhat heavily, Siann placed that fucking bat on her work table. Her fingers curled taut, recoiling away from it. Finally, blessedly, her whole body sagged.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Derek uttered under his breath.

Mumbles began to stir throughout the room. Lisa let out a laboured puff as if she hadn’t been able to breathe since she’d knelt on the floor. Given that she was absentmindedly scraping the wood in her hand with the _back_ of her whittling knife, Siann could believe that.

“Alright, back at it.” George’s loud rumble set the shop in motion again, at least a little more so than before. People gasped and exclaimed theatrically as the volume of the voices rose. The sounds of saws joined them. Hammers began thudding and smacking, which, coincidentally, matched the beat of the headache swelling in Siann’s temples.

Fucking fuck the _fuck_ out of it.

She slumped onto her stool, dazed, barely able to offer Lisa a shrug in response to her big wide eyes.

“Shit,” she mumbled.

Soft grey fabric dangled next to her head. She glanced up at George, at the proffered cloth, and sighed what was perhaps the deepest sigh of her life. She didn’t realize - didn’t even question why he was handing it to her until she reached for it and spotted the smear of blood across her hand. From her chin. From Negan’s glove. From Lucille.

Lucille, who was now lounging across her table, staining the wood with delicate drips from her spikes.

George’s hand came down on Siann’s shoulder, patting her somewhat awkwardly.

“Good girl,” he murmured.

Siann scrubbed at her hand and face until her skin glowed red.


	2. The Night Shift

As the day stretched on into the evening, the shop’s workers finished up the last of their projects and clocked out, one by one. Each of them had taken the chance to gawk at Lucille right up until their last step out the door. A lot of them had eyeballed Siann as well. Only a few of them had the decency to duck away from the ferocious scowl their attention earned them.

“Jesus fucking _wept_ ,” Siann hissed under her breath. An itch of restless frustration simmered under her skin as she twirled her whittling knife in her hand. She jabbed the point of it into the surface of the rickety table with such force that Lucille jolted to life, rolling a few centimetres towards her. A sound of disgust crackled at the back of her throat.

Lisa exhaled slowly as she found her feet, stiff from hunching over her own work station for hours. She shuffled over and placed a fistful of finished bolts next to Lucille. Siann thought she caught a tremble in her friend’s fingers. Lisa had been about the only one to avoid looking all day, but now, with no more work to distract her, Lucille gained her attention.

Lisa had gushed at Siann a few minutes after everything had calmed down, after Siann had picked up her scrap of sandpaper and began scrubbing away the ruined varnish on the ill-fated handle.

“Aren’t you gonna start working on Lucille?” Derek had asked.

“Got a quota to meet first.” Later, Siann felt guilty about how she’d snapped at him. “What’s more important, huh? Weapons that are gonna help feed and clothe us, or that…” She’d trailed off, succumbing to her earlier common sense with a defeated sigh. With a twist of her head, she set to sanding. “I’m gonna do my damn job. She can wait her turn.”

Not to mention the fact that working on Lucille was going to be challenge enough without all the eyes that, only an hour ago, had been a comfortingly familiar sight. Now, Siann felt as if she was looking back at them through the bars of a zoo cage. She wanted to wait until the herd thinned. George’s lesson in anonymity had been a quick-learned one. The irony of the whole situation hadn’t been lost on her - one minute he’d been warning her not to draw attention to herself regarding Negan, then, not ten minutes later, Negan had irreparably wrecked her status as a happy little nobody.

Karma was one petty bitch.

“Let me help,” Lisa had implored, a budding shine threatening her lower lash line. “I can finish up what you need to get done while you work on her.”

That had gotten a real smile from Siann – albeit a small one. “Nah. You have your own shit to do. I got this.”

“But it’s my _fault_.” Lisa’s voice strained against the emotional quiver in her last word.

Derek had frowned. “What’s your fault, Lis?”

Lisa took a moment, pressing her lips tight together. “If Si hadn’t covered for me with Oliver, he never woulda ratted her out to Negan. I coulda _said_ something. I didn’t.”

Siann shook her head, smiling softly again. “Nah,” she’d repeated. “I would’ve screwed with that flaccid fuck no matter which one of us he was goin’ to town on. You know that.”

It was another sad bit of irony that the smile lines framing Lisa’s frown deepened, only making her look more miserable. “Then it shoulda been _both_ of us on the choppin’ block.”

Siann supposed that she could hardly fault her friend for some ill-placed integrity.

“You were right to stay out of it,” she’d said. Lisa’s drooping shoulders told Siann that she clearly wasn’t comforted. So, she had sighed. “But you can make me two dozen bolts when you’ve got the time. I hate those finnicky little shits.” 

Now, Lisa rolled one of her finished bolts under an uneasy fingertip. “I ain’t ever seen him without it,” she mumbled.

The first bit of good humour she’d felt in hours twitched the corner of Siann’s mouth. “Overcompensation is a funny thing.”

“Not from what I’ve heard,” Derek smirked teasingly, clearly dawdling as he sorted away the last of his tools.

Lisa rolled her eyes as he shut his toolbox and wiped his hands clean of the day’s grime. “Oh, come on, now. How would you know anythin’ about that? That ain’t nothin’ but dumb gossip.”

“ _Oh,_ no it isn’t,” Derek chuckled slyly. “I came in with Frankie’s group, remember?”

“ _Pfft_ ,” Siann scoffed, tipping her head back dramatically. “You’re really telling us you were stupid enough to talk about Negan’s _dick_ of all things with one of his _wives_? Come on, man.”

People avoided Negan’s wives like the plague, save for courtesies and pleasantries whenever they moseyed on down from their penthouse. Siann had seen them a few times, easy to spot in their little black dresses. They seemed like nice enough girls, from a distance. She’d never really heard anything bad about them, save for a few bitter hisses of “ _whores!”_ from a meagre handful of brave scorners. It wasn’t something Siann paid much mind to, one way or the other. Honestly, those girls were probably the _least_ surprising part of the whole Negan package. 

Derek’s chin raised, almost smugly. “My stupidity paid off, ladies. I heard _ev-er-y-thing_.”

Despite herself, Siann leaned in, pressing a fist against her waywardly upturned mouth. Derek’s playful banter was blissfully infectious. It was stupid, meaningless moments like these that people lived for now. Vapid gossip about their leader’s junk had just become the best part of her day. Fucking hell, if she could reach back in time and tell herself (her vicious, devastated, hardly human skin-and-bone self) that she would have moments like this again, she might not have fractured a knuckle against the jaw of the Savior who found her.

She lapped up the normality, egging Derek on with two perked brows and openly amused eyes.

“Yeah, right.” Lisa still brushed off his story, but the hint of growing intrigue in her face didn’t go unnoticed by either of them.

“Damn _right_ yeah right! Frankie and I were tight before she and the big man got hitched. She had breakfast with Marcie and me the day after her _interview_. Had some awful nice things to say about her new fiancé.” Derek rolled his tongue against the back of his teeth, gleeful as anything. “There’s a reason he’s so _cocky_ , if you know what I mean…”

“ _Boy_.” George’s voice startled the three of them out of their wonderfully dumb little reverie. As he stepped into their circle, they shot mirthful glances at each other, as guilty as three kids caught passing notes in class. Lisa even had the decency to blush a little. “Them screws over there in that bucket know what you mean.”

Derek, on the other hand, failed miserably at tamping down on his exuberance. “Sorry, boss.” He spoke around a grin that fought his every effort to wrestle it down. “I’d save it for the water cooler, but we don’t actually have one of those.”

Even serious, no-bullshit George wasn’t immune to their indulgent childishness. “I’ll get on to Human Resources about that,” he said dryly. “Now go on off. Siann still has work to do.”

Siann tried to clutch at her brief fragment of happiness, but it began to slip mercilessly through her fingers like dry sand. George’s reminder anchored her back to reality. The jovial atmosphere became weighted and wan. She cupped those precious remaining grains as her friends’ smiles turned sympathetic and Lucille’s bloody barbs winked in her peripheral.

The quick reappearance of Derek’s dimples felt like spotting a lighthouse’s beam through a thickening mist.

“Don’t fuck up,” he grinned.

Her own smile required a little energy this time. “If I do, you can have my pillow.”

Siann’s memory foam pillow, bought through a few forgone meals’ worth of scrounged points, was, sadly, the most luxurious thing in her possession. Derek’s cheek twitched as pesky reality hovered imposingly once again. The truth was, their limp joke was not an out of the question scenario.

George angled his chin towards the door. “Go on. Off with ya.”

This time, they went.

oOo

_‘If I don’t get overtime points for this, I am gonna set this whole place on fucking fire,’_ Siann groused internally.

Her groggy gaze watched as the clock’s second hand inched forward and forward and forward. Whoever had lamented watching paint dry had clearly never had to wait on George’s premium varnish, hidden away under his bench for special little emergencies like this one.

He’d also pulled out a little hand sander, a new cloth, a soft-bristled brush and furniture wax. Siann’s brows had knitted upwards curiously when he placed them next to Lucille, wondering at the secret honeypot, before her mind rocked back to her earlier irritation at her brush going walkabout. She figured it was probably for the best that the rest of the little worker bees didn’t know about these goodies.

“Alright,” he’d exhaled, dragging Lisa’s stool over to Siann’s table and settling in with a huff. “Give ‘er here.”

Siann had squinted in confusion. “Aren’t I supposed to do it?”

George’s greyish eyes had flicked up and over her expression. “You will. Some of it. But this is no small job.”

“Yeah, that part wasn’t lost on me.” Her fingers brushed against her chin with the mindless reflexiveness of dashing away a fly. She’d been doing the same thing all day – unable to erase the ghost of Negan’s touch. It was like he’d seeped beneath her skin and left her feeling profoundly _off_. “But it’s supposed to be me.”

“He won’t know.”

“He might,” Siann had argued. “This is his…his _thing._ He’s never without this fucking twig. He’s testing me. Or punishing me – whichever. You think he doesn’t have eyes on the door to make sure I do exactly what he asked?”

Amusement twitched George’s beard. “You’re paranoid.”

“He’s _everywhere_ , remember?” Her own lips twisted into a bitter grimace. “And even if he isn’t watching, haven’t you done this before? And made furniture and shit for him and his wives? He might know your work.”

George hadn’t pressed on with the argument. Siann liked to think that maybe he admired her gusto, or mistook her tenacious stubbornness for dedication to her job. With a resigned sigh, he’d given her some instructions on how to go about the task – how lightly to sand it, how far down to go, how to place it between two table clamps to let the varnish dry. He even ducked next door, into the forge, and returned with a reel of new barb wire and some bolt cutters.

With that, he’d had nothing more to offer but some parting wisdom: “Don’t think too hard about it. You’re good at your job – you got a knack for this. You’ll get it done.”

And she did.

It took much longer than she expected. The spiteful meticulousness that had developed from the blacksmiths’ condescending berating was suddenly an enormous asset.

Well, an asset to the job - not, particularly, to her sleep schedule.

After setting Lucille up to dry, Siann had nabbed a file from the forge and set to sharpening the wire’s spikes to vicious points. She snickered to herself as she worked, relishing the image of Negan yelping and swearing furiously as he grabbed Lucille by the wrong end. It was a bout of rebellious pettiness that she could afford.

But, eventually, she ran out of barbs. So there she sat, following the _tick, tick, tick_ of the clock with eyes that stung at the rims.

_Tick, tick, tick._

Two thirty a-fucking-m. _Goody_.

Deciding it was time to risk it for the metaphorical biscuit, Siann ghosted a cautious finger along Lucille’s shiny new surface; a slow, scrutinizing gesture, feeling out any residual tackiness or imperfections in the varnish.

There were a couple of pinpricks along the bulbous end where the barbs had gouged in, too deep to be sanded out without eating away at Lucille’s girth – something she _somehow_ doubted Negan would appreciate. George had warned her that would happen, so she wasn’t worried. They wouldn’t even be noticeable if she lined the new wire up right.

The end of this fuckshow was finally in sight.

Despite her weariness, the thought that she’d be collapsing face-first into her pillow within the hour dragged a smile onto her face. She didn’t even care about how her overworked fingers ached when she began to twist the first clamp loose. All she had to do was wrap the thing up, and-

Oh, shit. Then what?

Siann’s hand paused its rotations as she staggered over that speedbump. Negan hadn’t given her any instructions as to what to _do_ with the thing when she was done with it. She couldn’t just leave it here. There was no way she was risking anyone else’s greasy paws touching it. Knowing the human race, she’d bet her bottom dollar (or point, as it were) that at least _one_ of her co-workers was fool enough to start swinging it around. But…it was late as hell. She _really_ didn’t think that Negan wanted to be woken up, even for her to put his darling Lucille back in his hand. He hadn’t told her to bring it to him, and, hell, she didn’t even know the way to his room. So…fuck. What, then? She could hardly bring it down to the common area with her. Even the thought knocked her stomach wrong. The people she spent every day with started treating her different as soon as Negan lay eyes on her. How would the whole damn congregation of workers react if she threw back her curtain at the crack of dawn with his _fucking_ baseball bat in her hand?

Jesus CHRIST.

Her reddened eyes rolled up in her head and she twisted the clamp with more ferocity than before, resigning herself to a grand four hours of sleep hunched over her table before the shop opened for business again.

Siann was so busy wallowing in her aggravation that she missed the sounds of footsteps coming up the hall.

The door swung open just as she had lifted Lucille free. Her head snapped up, expecting to see its owner lurking in the doorway. Instead, she was greeted with a potentially just as agitating sight.

“ _Heeey_ , Siann!”

_FUCK._

Exhaling slowly through her teeth, Siann eyed Rodney and Alex as they bounded through the door.

_Brilliant_ , she griped sourly. The very fucking last thing she needed was the herculean effort of shaking off these two dipshits.

Blinking her unimpressed stare back down to her table, she began searching for the thick work gloves she needed to handle the wire. “Bit early for work, aren’t ya, fellas?”

“Ain’t even been to sleep yet.” This seemed to be some sort of bragging point judging by Rodney’s sloppy grin. “We saved up our points and got ourselves a little nightcap. The Saviors get the good shit, but hell, man - I ain’t ever gonna complain about a little Russian.” The sound of liquid sloshing reached Siann’s ears as Alex lifted a bottle of cheap vodka into the air by its neck, holding it up like a trophy.

It was only half empty, but it didn’t take much to get people drunk nowadays. They didn’t seem _wasted_ or anything. They were acting like dumbasses, sure, but that was nothing new. They liked to give her shit and they liked when she gave them shit in return. Even if they got on her nerves sometimes, she didn’t really dislike them. They reminded her of her friends when she was a teen – big, loutish types that were fun to get fucked up with. Usually, it was something familiar that she almost enjoyed when she was in the right mood.

But it just so happened that, right now, she was in the entirely _wrong_ mood. She didn’t have the energy or the patience for their banter. All she wanted was to find the…what the hell was she looking for? Right, the gloves. Right, right, right. But where were they? Not on her table. She knew where they were earlier, and she knew _that_ because she’d planned out everything she’d need for this extremely inconvenient job, and she’d decided she’d grab them when she needed them, from the…

_Christ_ , her exhausted brain was lumbering ten miles behind her.

The two Russia fans strolled towards her table as she set Lucille down carefully and stood up from her stool, her spine cracking as she straightened it out for the first time in hours. She groaned as her stiff legs got with the programme, fighting off the pins and needles that tingled like static in the soles of her feet. Her bleary eyes darted to the movement of Alex shaking the bottle for emphasis, right under her nose.

“Want some?”

_Yes_ , she whimpered inwardly. God, she wanted to grab that bottle and chug herself into a coma. But she couldn’t. She still didn’t know where the _fucking_ gloves were.

She scanned Lisa’s table and came up empty. “Nah,” she mumbled. “Gotta get this fuckin’ thing done. Fuck, do either of you see the- _ugh_!”

_There_ they were. Derek’s table. God, she needed some sleep.

Shimmying around the side of her desk, Siann pulled one glove into her work-red fingers and reached for the other. She was left blinking dumbly as another pair of hands snatched it up.

She couldn’t begin to describe how _annoying_ it was that Rodney, with his stupid smug grin, was more nimble with a quarter bottle of vodka in him than she was lacking a few hours’ sleep. Grimacing, she made to whip the glove out of his hand, but he twitched it up out of her reach. Alex gurgled a chuckle around the mouth of the bottle.

It took real effort not to let the exasperation stoke her temper. Any kind of reaction beyond the mild annoyance she couldn’t keep off her face would only spur them on. Instead, she tugged the glove she did have over her right hand, feeling for all the world like an underpaid sitter trying to wrangle two toddlers. “George is gonna tear you two some new holes if you show up to work drunk in a few hours.”

“Nah, George is cool,” Alex shrugged. “’Sides, he won’t even notice what with all the drama.”

He gestured to Lucille with a meaningful curl of the mouth. Siann scowled. “He notices everything. Plus, I figure, what with all the _drama_ , dealing with two drunk nimrods will be a relief.”

“Now, _now_ ,” Rodney chastised teasingly, seeming only delighted with her attitude. “Un-bunch those panties, sweet-cheeks. We’re here as friends.”

“Is that so,” Siann deadpanned.

“And spectators,” Alex tacked on, an awestruck – if somewhat cloudy – gaze now fixed firmly on Lucille. “Christ, just _look_ at her…”

Siann zeroed in on his free hand, ready to sand the skin off it at the slightest inclination to lay a finger on all her hard work.

“I have been looking at her,” she grumbled. “I’ve been looking at her for hours now. I’d rather like to _stop_ looking at her in the near future, and if my _friends_ would be so kind as to let me get the fuck on with my work, I might even get some sleep afterwards.”

Alex’s attention stayed snared in Lucille’s stranglehold, but Rodney _tsk_ ed a low chuckle, plucking the bottle from his friend’s fist. “Think you can kiss sleep goodbye, Si.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Rodney took a shallow swig, watching her through the glass. “You fucked up, girl. Got Negan’s attention.”

“And?” She snapped. “What of it? Everyone’s acting like I’m the only person he’s ever set fucking eyes on. I’ll give him his precious fucking bat back and mosey on with my life.”

“Hardly,” Alex scoffed. “Why do you think the blacksmiths are such cocksuckers? Why are the Lieutenants all such hardasses, huh?”

“Because they’re _lieutenants_ , maybe?”

“Because they got Negan on top of ‘em, makin’ their lives tough. Because they have his _attention_.”

Siann hadn’t allowed those thoughts to occur to her yet, but they’d been lurking there; glaring behind the stares she hadn’t wanted to read into; carefully translated into her dismissive, petulant attitude. Because it was _true_. She couldn’t speak for the lieutenants because she didn’t know shit about them, save their names and faces, but she knew the blacksmiths. She knew why they freaked out at the slightest inconvenience and cracked the whip like goddamn slave drivers. They were responsible for everything from tools to weapons to the nuts and bolts in every toolbox, and if anything went wrong with those things, it was _their_ nuts being cracked by the Saviors. By Negan.

She’d always known that, but it was very easy to forget when they were such gargantuan _dicks_ to everyone. Grudge was easy - compassion was hard. She’d chosen grudge like everyone else because it _was_ so easy to _hate_ them…but Alex was right. It all began at the top. 

And now the top had found her.

“The blacksmiths are responsible for a whole lot of bullshit,” Siann countered defensively, still fending off those anxieties. “They’re in charge of their department. I’m not. And – as has been rammed down our throats _many_ fucking times – their jobs are more important than ours.”

Rodney’s brow quirked as he smiled coolly. “More important than that?”

Siann’s fatigue seemed to double down on her shoulders as her eyes followed his indication. Lucille lay there, primped and polished to perfection, an inanimate piece of fucking sports equipment – with more value than the three of their lives combined.

Her gut clenched taut with hatred.

At Siann’s silence, Rodney chuckled. “’Course, that’s not the _only_ kind of attention you’ve got to worry about…”

“What?”

“Well…” Rodney very deliberately slid his eyes down her form and up to her face again. “Negan’s wives caught his attention too.”

Siann recoiled, her head jerking as if he had reached out and cracked an open palm across her face.

“Don’t look so shocked,” he continued, a smirk toying with the corners of his mouth. “Did that seriously never occur to you? Shit, it’s all anyone’s been talkin’ about all day.”

Vexation roiled in Siann’s belly. Her teeth clamped tight. She’d been so concerned with everyone’s eyes that she’d forgotten the trouble that came with their fucking _mouths._

“Of course it has,” she hissed acidly.

“So, either way…” Rodney tipped his head from side to side. “Less sleep for yo-ou!”

Siann closed her eyes.

All the stress and exhaustion pressed against the back of her throat, making it ache with the promise of tears. Hell, every part of her ached. She’d been working for over twenty hours now, getting by on half a bowl of gluey oatmeal from the canteen at first light. Her fingers twitched into tight fists as the sting in her eyes intensified.

_I will not cry_ , she growled to herself. _No I fucking won’t. Not in front of these assholes. Not because of HIM. I will not shed one fucking tear over that monster._

Her eyes were resolutely dry when she opened them, feeling as though she was prying her lids apart with a crowbar. The sharp smell of the varnish stung her sinuses as she inhaled slowly through her nose.

“ _Over my dead body_. _”_

There was something serpentine about the way Rodney’s eyes slit as he smiled. “That’s an option, too.”

Siann’s own eyes narrowed.

Alex, leaning his weight on his knuckles at the edge of Siann’s table, dragged his gaze up away from Lucille like an unabashed drunk who’d been leering at a woman across the bar. “So you wouldn’t go for it?”

Her dull expression was his only acknowledgment.

“You wouldn’t have to work for points anymore,” he pressed on innocuously.

“What are you, his personal shopper?” Siann snapped. “Why in fuck’s name would I ever want that? I’m fine here. At least I _was_ , before today.”

“And now-” Rodney, once again, held the bottle out before her. “-You have his attention.”

Siann’s deep sigh deflated her. Her pained stare settled on Lucille. Before her lagging brain could catch up with what was happening, she felt the rim of the bottle touch her lips, held there by her own sneaky hand.

“Attagirl,” Alex grinned.

The burn of the vodka sloshed against the back of her throat before she could remind herself what an utterly dense idea it was. But _fuck_ , she couldn’t even _remember_ the last time she’d had a drink. The first gulp warming the depths of her stomach hauled her backwards - back to overfriendly customers buying her shots; to hazy weekends with her friends, exploring the city, all big and new; to her nights binge-drinking as a careless little teen and those precious quiet evenings when he was home after a week on the road-

Siann shook her head and dislodged herself from the bottle, a pleasant shiver tingling up her spine like an old friend’s embrace.

Shit. She couldn’t. She _wanted_ to…but she couldn’t. She couldn’t fuck this up. It meant fucking her _life_ up, and she couldn’t justify that. Not after everything. Not for any amount of self-pity or anger or desire. The person who’d gotten her this far deserved better than that. The people who worked here, who were counting on her to pull her weight, deserved better than that – even these two dumbasses. Hell, _she_ deserved better than to kick dust over everything she’d survived in favour of one stupid decision.

She thunked the bottle resolutely against Rodney’s chest.

“No more? You sure?”

She nodded, her nose scrunching up at the aftertaste. “Yep,” she gulped. “Ugh. Thanks, really, but I’m good. Rather spend my next few weeks sweating down here than in a cell.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Alex conceded amiably.

Siann sighed, managing to sap an ounce of motivation from that newfound resolve. Despite everything, Rodney and Alex’s visit had managed to lift her spirits a little. She decided, as she plucked her other glove from Rodney’s slackened fingers and tugged it on, that she wouldn’t be _too_ much of an ass to either of them during their likely hangovers tomorrow. Ready to see the end of the ordeal, she took Lucille in hand again.

“What if Negan does ask you to be his wife?”

Rodney’s sudden question stopped Siann in her tracks as she reached for the wire. “I’ll say no.”

Her simplistic answer didn’t satisfy him. “And what if he doesn’t take no for an answer?”

Siann’s hackles rose with a fresh wave of agitation. “Just what the fuck does _that_ mean?”

Rodney and Alex exchanged a brief look that Siann couldn’t read.

“It means the man gets what the man wants,” Rodney clarified. There was an undertone to his voice that couldn’t be blamed on the slight slur from the alcohol.

Siann stiffened from top to toe, her temper riled defensively once again. “Are you suggesting that he could fucking _rape_ me?”

“Nah,” Alex said dismissively. “He wouldn’t do that. Rape is against the rules.”

“ _His_ rules,” Rodney tacked on meaningfully.

“Nah,” Alex repeated with a wave of his hand. “But I get the feeling he’s the persistent type. Like, _insistently_ persistent. I mean, he didn’t get all _this_ for nothing.”

Siann’s nails gouged into her palm as her stare flashed between the two of them, her face frozen with incredulous ire. Maybe it was her exhaustion, but it felt like they were talking circles around her, crawling sluggishly towards whatever point they were trying to make just to piss her off. “What _exactly_ are you trying to say here?”

Alex shrugged, rocking back and forth on his heels. “He could make shit rough for you if you turn him down, that’s all.”

“ _Oh_ ,” she sneered. “ _That’s all_. Well, that’s just fucking dandy, ain’t it? The man who runs the god damn world might just ruin my fucking life if I don’t bend right over for him. _That’s all_.”

Rodney’s low chuckle pricked at the back of Siann’s neck. “Easy, girl. We’re just saying, the man’s got an ego. He’s not gonna like getting shot down for no good reason.”

“And _what_ ,” Siann growled, “is a good reason, to you?”

The pair glanced at each other again. Siann watched them sharply, getting the distinct feeling that she was missing something.

“Well…” Rodney rubbed at the back of his neck. “I minored in Social Psychology in college…”

_Oh, fuck ME._

“…And survey says that a man is more likely to back off a woman who’s already claimed – so to speak – by another man.”

And _there_ it is.

The broiling emotion in Siann’s face melted, giving way to a mask of cool knowing. Shit, she _must_ have been tired not to have seen this coming from twenty miles away. There was some honest amusement underlying the contempt she felt (and though the drunk dumdums who decided that the worst workday she’d ever had was the day to try being slick shits got the lion’s share in that department, there was definitely enough contempt to go ‘round to the other dumdum who’d staggered blindly into their little game), and maybe that was why she decided to humour their ass-ery rather than slamming the door on the conversation without mercy.

“Hmm,” she hummed lightly. “And what would I do if, perchance, Negan decided to flex a fraction of brainpower and have someone, I dunno, ask around? Are you really telling me, Mr. Minor, that he’d be more pissed about straight-up rejection than rejection _and_ a lie?”

Rodney decided not to play ignorant to Siann’s deliberately obvious sarcasm. Instead, his sly smirk gained free reign of his face.

“It doesn’t _have_ to be a lie,” he lilted suggestively.

In an instant, Siann realised just what had caught her notice when he’d been talking about Negan taking what he wanted. It was _admiration_.

“But it does,” she replied, nose wrinkling with mocking pity.

“Aw, come on,” Alex wheedled playfully. “It’s the end of the world!”

Well, she had to give him points for that one, she supposed. She shook her head with a mirthful scoff.

“And this is the end of my patience,” she quipped, standing up to reach for the briefly forgotten barb wire. “Now kindly fuck off so I can finish up this goddamn catastrophe while I still cling to some will to live.”

“Come on,” Rodney echoed. Siann heard the slosh of vodka behind her as she sought out the end of the wire. “If you won’t let Negan fuck that stick out of your ass, somebody should.”

Siann’s eyes flared.

Banter, she could handle. Unwanted come-ons – hell, she’d been dodging those since she first squirmed into a training bra. But there had been a real edge to that jab…one that leaned a little too far into the _admiration_ for someone who _gets what he wants_. Even Alex was giving his friend an apprehensive glance.

It was time for Siann to slam the door.

She turned and levelled Rodney with an icy smile. The bat’s fresh shine gleamed as she wielded it, so close to her cheekbone that it would have made her cringe had she not been so determined to stand her ground.

“Fuck off,” she murmured. “Or I’ll slide this so far up _your_ ass I’ll be able to pick your _teeth_ with it.”

Rodney seemed to recognise the corner he’d backed himself into, but despite raising his hands in mock-surrender, his eyes remained ever so slightly clenched.

“Easy, Si. Didn’t mean anything by it,” he said smoothly. “Just thought you could relax is all. You work too hard – so goddamn tense all the time. Just trying to do a friend a favour, is all.”

At this point, Siann didn’t care enough to decipher whether he was really trying to sell that garbage or whether he was trying to be funny. All she knew was that she was beyond done with the situation.

“I know what _friend_ you were doing a favour for,” she whispered. With a pointed glance at his groin, she turned back to her table with a grim smile and the resolution that she was for fucking sure getting back to work this time. 

Cute notion, that.

The smell of vodka wafted over her shoulder as Rodney slid closer to her. “You’re being a real cunt today, you know that?”

“Dude,” Alex muttered quietly, catching on to how the situation was devolving with what Siann thought might be some mild concern. Rodney scoffed at him.

“Oh, what? She can be a dick to me but I can’t be a dick to her? That’s what friends do.” Another gulp of vodka sloshed down the hatch. His attempt to sound reasonable bordered on insulting.

“You have awful high expectations of your friends.”

“What can I say?” He bared his teeth at her. “I like to keep the bar high.”

Siann didn’t dignify that one by responding. Her withering expression slid from Rodney to Alex to the wire curled, waiting, on her table.

“You should give us a chance,” Rodney carried on lightly.

For one tempting flicker of a moment, Siann considered giving him a not-too gentle poke in the gut with Lucille. Luckily for him (and the unstable contents of his stomach), she didn’t want to lay a finger on the thing a second longer than necessary.

“Just why,” she sighed impassively, “should I do that?”

“You might actually enjoy one day in your life.”

Despite her brief attempt to ward him off with disinterest, that dragged one quiet laugh out of her. “I doubt it.”

Screw him. If they weren’t going to leave her to her work, she was going to finish up anyway and goddamn _flee_. She lifted Lucille from the table and pinched the end of the reel of wire between her fingers, puzzling at how she was going to wrap it up without the risk of it unravelling.

“I can prove you wrong,” Rodney challenged her playfully.

Siann decided to let her silence convey that playtime was very much over. Her brow furrowed as she touched the end of the wire to Lucille’s tip, trying to be careful. This needed to be a one-and-done job. If she kept wrapping and unwrapping it, those spunky new spikes that she’d been so proud of were going to scratch away at the bat’s surface, and then she was fucked all over again. She had to be precise, deliberate, and toss a quick prayer upwards for good measure.

Later, looking back in hindsight, she cursed her own stupidity. Not just for entertaining the idea that any God who might not have abandoned them would deign to listen, but for – after their entire idiotic exchange - not having realised that Rodney was utterly incapable of taking a hint.

In spite of the drinking, he was quick. In the space of a breath he slid up behind her, weaved an arm around her waist, and plunged his hand beneath the jeans that hung loosely off her hips.

Alex gasped. Siann froze.

Rodney’s fingers immediately dipped under the elastic of her ratty cotton underwear. They were clammy, cold from the bottle, and wasted no time in delving deep and cupping her crotch, using the grip to pull her back against his body. Air returned to her lungs – and fury returned to the dark chasm of her chest.

Siann was quick, too.

She rammed her elbow into Rodney’s diaphragm with so much force that he creased double as he staggered backwards, catching himself with the successfully dislodged hand on the edge of Derek’s desk. He retched up a wheeze. Siann braced herself as his strained white-red face gasped up at her, jaw clenching, watery eyes bulging with rage. Spittle sprayed his chin as he hissed out a vengeful growl.

He got one step towards her before Lucille slammed down hard, crushing those daring fingers against the top of the table.

Rodney’s howling scream rang off the cinderblock walls, almost drowning out Alex’s panicked cacophony of swearwords.

The power of the swing vibrated up the length of the bat, momentarily stinging Siann’s palms before prickling up her forearms. A shudder wracked her from throat to tailbone as she stood amidst the chaos, stunned still. She boggled at Lucille, held out in front of her, gleaming mischievously in the dim light at a job well done.

Except it wasn’t done. Rodney staggered back and forth with his dark red fingers gnarled in pain. When his loud, heaving groans dragged Sian’s attention back to reality, she noticed that at least two of them were bent oddly, definitely broken. Guilt washed through her torso like a wave of nausea, but she couldn’t speak. Her head shook, her mouth moved, but nothing except a weak gasp made it past her lips. Her arms slackened, leaving Lucille dangling by her side.

Alex continued his frantic chanting of “ _fuck, oh shit, oh fucking fucking shitting fuck_ ” as Rodney’s clamouring tapered off into a breathless snarl, and he turned on her with a purple, slavering face.

“ _YOU PSYCHOTIC FUCKING WHORE!”_ He screamed.

Throughout all this, he’d kept the vodka clutched ardently in his other hand. He swung it with all the strength of a man seeing red and lashed the thick bottom of the bottle against Siann’s cheekbone.

Vodka drenched both of them. Pain exploded like a mushroom cloud and swallowed up her skull. Her vision blackened for an instant before she crashed over the top of her work desk. Her legs scrambled clumsily as the heavy table skidded a foot across the floor, dragging her with it. Her arm struggled for purchase against it, her body still valiantly trying not to let her fall, and, instead, clamped down with all her weight on the newly sharpened barb wire.

Siann yowled and wrenched her arm back, but not before the wire sunk a few teeth in and _tore_.

“ _Fuck_!” She yelped.

Her feet steadied her just in time for Rodney to seize a fistful of hair and haul her upwards. The remainder of the vodka glugged out of the mouth of the bottle, caught between her head and his palm, and gushed down her scalp and the back of her neck. Suddenly heedless of his injury, he clamped his thumb and index finger around her throat and squeezed.

“Dude!” Alex yelled.

Blood trickled over Siann’s forearm as some wits returned to her and she reached back to claw at whatever part of him she could reach. He pressed harder in retaliation, snarling in her ear.

Then came that low, chilling whistle.

Negan stood in the same position he had only hours ago, shoulder propped against the doorframe, taking in the sight of his narrowed gaze and tightly upturned mouth icing over everything in his path. Rodney, Siann and Alex froze. Rodney’s fingers remained knotted in Siann’s hair, and her nails stayed gouged into his eyelid.

Negan’s tongue snaked out to touch his upper lip as he observed the spectacle, cold and unblinking.

“My, oh _my_ ,” he breathed theatrically. “Now just _what_ do we have _here_?”

Rodney’s grip slackened just enough for the bottle to slip free. It thumped against Siann’s shoulder and dropped, shattering instantly against the concrete floor, atomising glass in every direction.


	3. Human Resources

Drips of vodka slid down Siann’s spine like cold sweat. Rodney, a few steps ahead of her and Alex in terms of scrambling his senses together, wrenched himself away from her. His twitching fingers caught in the knot she’d scrunched her curls into that morning. She hissed and stumbled sideways a step, cracking glass under her grubby sneakers.

Negan said nothing, just let them stew in their terror. The sharp ache in Siann’s cheekbone throbbed so viciously that she reached weakly for her desk, sinking against it, afraid that she might just pass out completely and plop a nice shining cherry onto the icing of this wretched shit day.

Alex’s face was bleached white with horror – so deathly pale that Siann felt there was a solid chance of two of them crumpling to the ground. If not for the tense tightness that betrayed his smile, she thought Negan would get a good laugh out of that scenario.

The clock on the wall ticked distantly as the silence caved in on them, crushing all air out of the room.

“When I ask a question…” Negan murmured, lifting himself away from the doorway and sauntering towards them. His posture, the languid stroll – it was all every bit as casual as earlier that day, but something was…off. Siann’s pounding head reeled with instinctual alarm. “…I expect an answer.”

Alex floundered, fidgeting like a woodland critter scenting a predator lurking in the bushes. He flickered a helpless stare between Rodney and Siann, who doubted she could speak in that moment even if she knew what to say.

Negan closed in on them.

“I don’t like repeating myself,” he said, almost softly. “So…what…do _we, have, here_?”

As his voice loudened and the susurration in his tone ebbed into something harder, Siann realised what – besides his impending wrath – was causing the slicked-down hairs to spring to attention at the back of her neck.

Negan’s usual mask had an edge to it; there was just something innately artificial about it that kept people from being truly at ease around him. Despite his near-constant nonchalance, he was a beacon of intimidation. But she’d heard (to her disdain) from people she knew, from friends of friends, even from random snippets of conversation that reached her ears from time to time, that he was charming, funny, alluring in a way that could be totally disarming. He chose to be that way - to draw people in, she’d figured. After all, he couldn’t keep the Sanctuary wedged under his boot with fear alone. Now, as she saw the contrast between the man in front of her and the man from hours ago, she felt something click into place.

Whatever charisma Negan had, be it real or put on, was a tool. Not only did it draw people in, it made him unpredictable. It made it all the more jarring when he yanked the rug out and peeled the mask off.

Earlier, his goal had been to get an important job done. The mask was in place, slightly skewed by the workplace environment, but strapped on tight. Now, the three people under his nose were his only audience…and, this time, his goal was punishment.

Siann swayed under a rush of vertigo.

For one stupid second, the face of Ledger’s Joker came to mind: that over-exaggerated clown smile, weathered and smudged to reveal the skin of the real man - the psychopath underneath.

Only the mask in front of her wasn’t a makeup effect. It was the deliberate, calculated effort of a dangerous man who puppeteered every situation. As she watched the glittering in his eyes slowly settle into something stony, she knew she had him pegged.

Being right didn’t make her feel good.

She and Alex were lost causes, all pride and antipathy suffocated under their fear. It was Rodney, with a blip of drunken courage, that managed to give Negan an answer.

“She broke my hand,” he rasped, twitching it upwards so Negan could see.

The mask snapped back into place. Negan straightened back with both brows raised, nodding almost agreeably. But it was still goddamn _off_ , and Siann knew that they weren’t out of the woods, not by the longest of long shots.

“I _heard_ ,” he cajoled. “Your manly shrieking echoed _waaay_ on up that hallway.”

He gestured behind himself with a wiggle of his index finger and, for the first time, Siann noticed the second figure in the doorway. A towering, muscular man with a lovingly groomed moustache looked on with a detached sort of amusement, arms crossed over his chest.

“You see, Simon and I were up shooting the shit, working out some logistics, when _I_ realised just how _empty_ my hand felt!”

Siann’s insides lurched.

Negan’s eyes slid downwards, and she realised that, all this time, Lucille had remained clutched in her sweat-slick hand. If she hadn’t been so out of it – exhausted, riddled with fear and in some serious pain – she would have been exasperated with herself for not using the literal weapon in her hand to defend herself when Rodney had tried to choke her.

“There you are!” Negan grinned affectionately. “Look at that – spick and span! Although…it seems you boys have caught my girl here in a state of undress.”

While Rodney and Alex’s balls promptly re-ascended, a light, tinny sound pulled Siann’s eyes downwards. Negan’s boot tapped indicatively against the coil of barb wire that had fallen to the ground.

“And while I _more_ than understand a lady in her natural form being one of the finer things in life, well…” Negan slid a step closer, licking at his upper lip again as his eyes pinched. “Men in an _inebriated_ state don’t always act… _respectfully_ …”

Another step forward. Rodney rocked slightly but made an active effort not to recoil. Alex, on the other hand, shrank into himself, bug eyed, and visibly cringed when Negan twisted his foot, grinding shards of glass to twinkling grains.

Simon chuckled quietly. The sound relaxed Negan’s mouth enough to form a small smile, but the rest of his face remained frosted over. His eyes were distant in such a way that it made Siann wonder what cogs were turning in his head, but sharp enough that, once they really zeroed in on their target, that target was pinned by the throat.

Negan’s relentless stare locked on Rodney and stayed there, pondering yet decisive.

“… _And this was supposed to be a ladies-only event_.”

Negan didn’t indulge the dreading silence this time.

“Simon,” he practically crooned. “Escort these fellas downstairs, would ya?”

Simon stepped to the side of the door, extending his arm in a sweeping gesture, indicating the dark hallway.

“Gents,” he grinned.

Surprisingly, Alex was the first to uproot himself. He bowed towards the door and fled without a backward glance, skirting around Simon while Rodney was still entrenched under Negan’s gaze. Siann couldn’t tell if he was immobilised by terror or trying to hold his ground, but, either way, he dropped his head, shuffled quickly around Negan and towards whatever fate _downstairs_ entailed. When he reached the door, Simon clamped a faux-consolatory hand on his shoulder, ‘guiding’ him out. Once his vodka-soaked shirt vanished into the dark, Simon turned to Siann.

He lifted a hand to his brow with a gesture like he was tipping a hat. “Ma’am.” Then he was gone, too.

Siann stared after him, dazed. The wheels in her head grinded slower and slower as the adrenaline seeped out of her like the blood that curved her knuckles to drip off her fingertips.

“Presenting yourself as quite the troublemaker.” Negan’s deep rumble made her jerk slightly and dart her stupefied gawk upwards, to a thin line of shining teeth. “Aren’t you?”

Siann’s eyes squeezed shut. She tried to process the situation, desperately trying to herd her wayward mind into a straight line, but as went her adrenaline, so went just about everything else.

“I…” She blinked. The closed zipper of Negan’s jacket came into focus slowly, two jagged silver lines circling each other until they converged. Her weak croak sounded pitiful even to her own ringing ears. “What’s gonna happen to them?”

She might’ve been a victim of Negan’s attention, but not yet in the worst way. She was still standing here, in front of him, and not on her way _downstairs_ , whatever that really meant. Negan examined her contemplatively, sucking on his teeth.

“They’re gonna wake up with some mighty unpleasant hangovers in some mighty unpleasant cells,” he answered.

A fraction more oxygen made its way into her tight chest. That, Siann could live with.

“What about me?” 

Negan’s face creased into an aslant smile. Siann finally managed to drag her eyes up to his – dark, deep pits that felt like they could engulf her just the same as the unconsciousness that throbbed threateningly at her temples, ready to consume her at the slightest hint of surrender. She could fend off the latter, she thought, but when Negan edged another step closer and wrapped his fingers around Lucille, a sharp, panicked pulse almost sent her reeling.

Her hand stayed clamped around the bat when he made to pull it away. Negan’s eyes glinted delightedly, and he gave that quiet, throaty chuckle again.

“Well, hell. Look at that. You know, darlin’, if I’d known that you were gonna enjoy this girls’ night in as much as Lucille here – and by the looks of it, she had a _real_ good time – I might’a stuck around to watch. Can’t say I’m not partial to a little girl-on-girl _experimentation_.”

_That_ line managed to shake some of the fog off – if only to make room for some confusion and a spike of indignation. Negan’s tongue poked his upper lip playfully. The sudden, repulsive reminder of just what exactly she was squeezing so tightly was enough for her to pry her stiff fingers open. They remained clawed as colour returned to her knuckles and she robotically pulled her arm to her side.

With something that wasn’t quite a wink, Negan diverted his attention to his prized possession. He grazed his fingertips along the length of her, and Siann realised that she’d forgotten about this part: the employee evaluation, the verdict, the pinnacle point of this entire galactic mess. Yet, after everything, the tense anticipation she felt was dull, as if it was just out of reach, like her subconscious was trying to pin her sanity under a seatbelt when the rollercoaster was already reaching the end of the track.

She didn’t have to wait in her muted suspense for long. Negan exhaled, drew his thumb around the painted oval she’d avoided while sanding, and suddenly his eyes were on hers again.

“Well done,” he commended soberly. “Georgie sure didn’t oversell you.”

Siann was spared the struggle of trying to devise a reply. Negan cleared his throat and reached across for Lisa’s stool.

“Grab that wire for me.”

As the stool’s legs dragged against glass and concrete, Siann risked tipping over once and for all to retrieve it. She shook off a sense of surreal bewilderment when Negan pulled up next to her desk and sat down, making himself right at home. Even sitting he was taller than her. Taking the wire, he pressed the end of it against the bat, ready to ‘redress’ her. His brows perked as his thumb found the first barb.

“You sharpened these.”

By some long overdue miracle, beneath the haze of pain and debility, Siann’s mind managed to provide an adequate reply.

“What’s a makeover without a manicure?”

Negan liked that. His whole chest expanded into the responding chuckle, and a real grin wrinkled his nose. “Touché.”

With that, he got down to business. He curled the barb wire around Lucille with precision – deliberate and careful, clearly having done it a dozen times before. He hummed a tune under his breath, and while he was seemingly absorbed in the task, Siann’s eyes darted to the door.

She hovered awkwardly as he worked, feeling like an intruder in her own space. She swayed slightly, hardly able to feel the parts of her that weren’t hurting, and fleetingly wondered if this was how the empty air below Lisa’s knee felt to her. Schrodinger’s corporeality. The blackness of the hallway beckoned to her, but she didn’t think she could just walk out without Negan’s express permission to fuck off. A stressed sigh escaped her nose, and when she glanced back to Negan, he was examining her again. She was right: he wasn’t finished with her yet.

“You look like shit,” he announced. There was a hint of amusement behind the observation that made her shoulders stiffen. It was no surprise that this dick found entertainment in insulting her, and if it were anyone else she would have snapped at them for that statement of the blindingly obvious. But it _wasn’t_ anyone else. It was Negan, perched less than two feet in front of her, and she was already four feet deep in her own grave with the shovel still in hand. So she did what George would have told her to do and kept her damn mouth shut, opting to bob her shoulders in a tense shrug. Negan bit his lip. Lines creased the outer corners of his eyes just slightly. “What he hit you with?”

Worry bucked in her stomach again. Rodney was an absolute _dick_ , there was no denying that. She might not have been too proud of breaking his fingers, but she _was_ glad she’d defended herself and put him in his place, and if he was going to face some sort of punishment, then so be it. But she didn’t want to be the reason that Negan really fucking hurt the guy. Or worse, _killed_ him. 

She took too long to cobble together an answer this time, and Negan’s patience thinned. “Don’t know why you’re staying quiet there, honey, as if I’m not gonna get all the answers I require straight from the horse’s ass’s mouth.”

He chortled a little at his own joke, but that stare really was relentless. Maybe it was a burgeoning concussion, or the sensation of being totally, suddenly cornered, or maybe all the survival instincts that kept her spine straight earlier that day decided to do a one-eighty _fuck it_ backflip onto a frail tightrope, but something small flared in Siann. “Then why bother asking me?”

To an outside observer, those five small words would seem like nothing, but Siann’s heart stuttered as soon as she said them. They weren’t loud, or altogether sharp, but they were most certainly not respectful. Her earlier self would have god damn drop-kicked her.

Thankfully, Negan’s priorities stayed aimed at the more pressing issue that had presented itself, rather than the tiny tired snip of someone whose name he didn’t even know.

“Because,” he drawled. “I need to… _assess_ the situation. Y’see, that fingerless fuck made it pretty clear he plans on layin’ the whole thing on you. I’ve seen this kind of asshole a thousand times. He’s gonna tell me that you _made_ him hurt you. You…sent him all the _right_ signals. You _led him on_. Jiggled your titties right under his nose-” Siann’s expression curdled with affronted disgust; Negan’s perked amusedly “-and when he decided to shoot his shot, you flipped your shit – beat him all to hell with Lucille. _He’s_ gonna tell me that he was only _defending_ himself. So I _gotta_ know…” Negan’s head tilted innocuously, but there was an undercurrent to the pose that seemed almost goading. “…Is that what happened?”

She could _see_ it, could _hear_ the wounded tone in Rodney’s voice as tried to concoct a man-to-man comradery over some frigid psycho bitch with the guy who _gets what he wants._

Siann allowed a snarl to warp her face and expose her clenched teeth without a flicker of heed.

“ _No_ ,” she growled.

Negan’s eyes flashed with something undiscernible. Something like…triumph? Gratification? She didn’t know – was simmering too heatedly to care. She hadn’t even noticed him leaning down towards her throughout his little exercise in conjecture, crowding her in again, until he arched back up slowly and settled back into himself, rolling an inch of wire between his fingertips.

“Good,” he said airily. “Now, as for that other quivering mess, he’s gonna tell me whatever he thinks I wanna hear, be it in your favour or his presumptuous little pal’s. Hell, a guy that terrified on the sauce is gonna positively piss himself when Lucille comes knocking in the light of day.”

The mention of the bat and all it represented chilled the temper Negan had managed to rile in her. The sudden image of warped, melted skin pressed her throat inward until her breathing juddered. No. A timeout in the cells – sure, that was reasonable. Hell, she wouldn’t even call herself petty for wanting to see them endure that kind of punishment. But having to come to work every day and see them glaringly scarred for life and know it was because of her…no. She couldn’t live with that. She couldn’t sit at her table and pretend like everyone who saw them didn’t know that she was the reason why…that her dumb decision after dumb decision forever cost two men half of their faces…

Siann had done some shit. Seen some shit. Everybody had. She knew what it felt like to push the point of a knife into someone’s chest or throat or gelatinous eyeball and bleed them out of the world. Shooting someone in the head wasn’t always the clean kill it seemed like on the grainy old TV she used to own – often, blood gushed from every orifice like a water from a tap, and that was with a semi-decent shot. Sending a bullet up through the corner of someone’s jaw wouldn’t kill them, just pulverise their face and leave them shocked, struggling and gargling helplessly, worse than either dead or undead.

Yeah, she’d done things. But that was survival – nobody got to be righteous about that anymore. She’d never hurt anyone maliciously. She knew she could survive again, but until that became necessary, she wanted it behind her. She might hate Rodney and even Alex for the rest of her days, but she didn’t want them hurt because of her. Hurt or worse…

“Are you gonna kill them?”

Negan toed a piece of glass thoughtfully. “Do you want me to kill them?”

“No,” she said immediately.

“Hmm,” Negan mused. “Well, unless they moseyed on down here with the explicit intention to _rape_ you-”

“They didn’t,” Siann interjected hurriedly.

“-And I _will_ find out if that was the case…” Negan pressed on as if she hadn’t spoken, forgoing scolding her for the interruption in favour of making his point. “Then no. I won’t kill them.”

Somehow, Siann couldn’t make herself reach for the relief he was dangling above her head. She didn’t _trust_ him, and in the silence that followed as they gauged each other, she knew that he knew that.

“You seem surprised,” he observed.

She guessed he was probing at her, figuring her out. Maybe her mistrust of him bred a natural mistrust of her…or so she’d believe, if he wasn’t _Negan_ and she wasn’t an inconsequential worker without a hope of posing so much as a whisper of a threat to him. However, she thought he’d gotten more than enough out of her already, and opted to reply with just another shrug.

Negan placed Lucille carefully on the table, still only half dressed, and rose from his seat. Standing straight-backed, the crown of her head barely levelled with his shoulder.

“ _Ev_ eryone under this roof is a resource.” Negan’s finger circled the air emphatically. “Those two asswipes are resources. That sackless dumbass Oliver serves his purpose. Even you and your mousey little friend…which is why I let it slip by earlier that you _lied_ about which one of you made that handle.”

Siann was truly struck dumb by that one. He didn’t know. He couldn’t possibly. “I made it.”

Negan’s fingertips lightly smacked her cheekbone in reprimand. A fresh wave of aching pain thumped mercilessly across her face. It got the better of her unsteady attempt at a poker face and she jerked back with a sharp hiss. When she cut her eyes back up to his, he was watching her with the same kind of tolerant amusement as a rottweiler pawing lackadaisically at a tiny, spitting kitten. Siann’s temper crackled furiously.

“On account of your shitty night and the impressive work you did with my girl…I’m gonna pretend you did not just insult my intelligence _and_ break an _important as fuck_ rule with those three dumb little words…a rule you have _already_ been warned about…”

Siann grit her teeth helplessly. She didn’t know what to do. Did she press forward with her defence of Lisa and risk truly angering Negan, or did she fold and all but admit she’d been covering for a friend (one that was barely scrounging points after working off the medical resources that saved her life after the impromptu amputation performed by the Saviors) and risk shifting repercussions her way instead? Render the entire ordeal of challenging Oliver and catching Negan’s eye totally pointless? Siann’s aching brain fuzzed like TV static.

Fortunately, Negan didn’t bother to prolong the conversation. He reached down, pinched the fingertips of her gloves, whipped them off her loose, dangling hands and tossed them aside. With a muted sigh, he tipped his head back towards the door. “You are dismissed. Go to the infirmary, have the doc take a look at that.”

And with that, he was done with her. She stayed standing there for another moment as he lowered himself onto the stool once more, took Lucille in hand, and got back to business without another glance at her.

A daze settled over her. Her weighted feet dragged her out the door and up the dark hallway. Negan’s absentminded humming buzzed in her ears, fading to nothingness as she meandered slowly through the corridors. She didn’t go to the infirmary. Her mind stayed utterly blank as she found her palm ghosting along the handrail of the stairs that led to the workers’ living quarters – the biggest of the Sanctuary’s main floors. Distantly, she registered a concerto of snoring, a cough and the mewling of a baby as she brushed her curtain aside and crept into the small cordoned-off space she called her own. Without so much as kicking off her shoes, she folded herself onto her camp bed. Almost as soon as she registered the tear that rolled over the bridge of her nose and dotted her long-coveted pillow, she was gone.

oOo

The sound of something smashing yanked Siann out of the darkness. She jerked awake – and immediately regretted it. Her stiff neck rewarded her efforts to twist onto her back with a protesting ache. Moving at all felt like waging war against the lead-heavy weight of her limbs. Her heartbeat echoed up her neck and through her head, and every pulse carried with it a wave of pain. Groggy and confused, she grimaced and touched the heel of her palm to the side of her face. It throbbed with such ferocity that it felt as if someone was repeatedly tapping a hammer against her head. Wincing, she managed to push herself upright.

_Jesus_ , she thought, cupping her face in her hands. She may as well have downed that vodka last night. A hangover wouldn’t have-

Oh. _Fuck_.

Memories of the night before rushed her all at once. Alex and Rodney. The vodka, soaked into her clothes and hair. Lucille. _Negan_.

She exhaled the air that had stuck fast in her throat, desperately trying to crank the gears in her head into working order. Beyond the curtains that closed her in, voices droned. Objects moved. The sound of someone grouchily sweeping glass nearby – “ _you’re gonna have to pay for that_ ” – finally clued her in to the fact that the day was in full swing. Panic jolted her like a shock from a live wire.

_I’m fucking late for work!_

Siann swung her legs out of bed and lunged upright. Pain and vertigo almost tipped her to the ground, but she managed to stagger towards the slit between the curtains and out into the humdrum pandemonium of people going about their lives in Negan’s Sanctuary.

Daylight lanced through her skull. It really did feel like she was nursing a hangover as her arm came up to block the light and she groaned miserably.

“Ah, _shit_ ,” she hissed, stopped in her tracks by a particularly vicious pulse of pain. A close-by gasp cracked her eyes open.

“Siann! Oh my _God_!” It was Abigail, her left-curtain neighbour, bouncing little baby Rosie on her hip. Or she had been, at least. Shock had stilled her. She gawked at Siann as if she’d just plunged through the roof rather than stepped out of her ‘room.’ “What on earth _happened_ to you?”

Several others had paused and turned to stare at her, and she realised what a goddamn fright she must have looked. If the persistent pain was any indicator, the bruises that were no doubt blooming across her face must have been something to see.

“I- nothing. I-” Siann shook her head, reminding herself why she’d dragged herself out of bed in the first place. “Wha’ time is it?”

“Three,” a voice supplied.

Oh, _shit_. She was _catastrophically_ late for work.

“ _Damn it_ ,” she hissed.

She rushed past set after set of big round eyeballs and pulled herself up the metal stairs. She’d never seen George lose his cool before, but all she could imagine was that he was going to absolutely _butcher_ her. They were in the middle of a rush-job under the blacksmiths and the Saviors and now they were short Rodney and Alex – and in she strolls eight hours late? Was this nightmare _ever_ going to let the fuck _up_? As she rounded the corner to the carpentry shop’s hallway, it was the babble of voices that reached her beyond the door, not the sounds of saws and drills. Dread squeezed her tight as she all but crashed into the room. Silence descended immediately.

“Jesus Christ, girl,” Freddy muttered to the side of her.

“I know, I know,” she said breathlessly, hands held up in surrender. A grey blur circled her vision as she scanned the room of horrified faces for her boss, ready to grovel.

Lisa’s hands cupped her upper arms, appearing out of nowhere. Suddenly, Siann was clenched against her friend’s soft chest. Confusion swamped her. Once again, she found herself in a futile battle against her own careening mind. Over Lisa’s shoulder, she noticed that her desk had been pulled back into place and the glass had all been swept away, save for a few tiny specks that glittered tauntingly. The sting that pricked her eyes took Siann by surprise.

Lisa pulled back with a heavy breath. The way her concerned frown quivered as she examined Siann’s face was absolutely crushing.

“Are you okay?” She croaked. Siann didn’t get a chance to respond. “No, of course you ain’t okay. Look at you, you ought’a be in the infirmary.”

“I’m fine-” Her weak insistence was cut short.

“Lisa’s right, Si. You look _terrible_. Jesus Christ, I can’t _believe_ that fucker,” Derek growled.

“What fucker? Wait – _Rodney_? Wait, how…how did you know about-?”

“We all know, Si. Negan came down here first thing this morning to ream George out.”

“He _what_?”

Derek’s usually jovial face was hard and serious. He nodded. “He said that those two assholes got drunk and came down here to get to you while you were alone. He said Rodney _assaulted_ you – whacked you with the bottle when you fought back. He was angry, wanted to know why you were here so late at night by yourself. Shit, we weren’t sure _what_ he was going to do.”

Guilt and horror pressed in on Siann from both sides. Her chest was so tight it felt as though she was being physically crushed – like her ribcage was going to splinter from the pressure. It was only then, when she looked around the room again, that she realised their boss was nowhere in sight. The rancid taste of bile burned the back of her throat like acid.

“Where- where’s George?” She rasped. Dread swelled in her chest, slowly pressing her airways shut.

The silence that pressurised outside the bubble of their conversation gained weight under her question. Burgeoning tears blurred Derek’s sombre expression.

“Negan fired him this morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Protip: Spend your first three entire chapters in the same room lmao


	4. Consequences

After the literal end of the world, any person with half an averagely functioning brain would have clued in to the fact that, one: life is heinously, mercilessly unfair, and two: things could and would change for the worst at a moment’s notice. But as Siann stomped through the corridors of the Sanctuary, having glided past the point of seeing sense, the only thought that stood out in the flurry of guilt-ridden rage was that only twenty-something hours ago, she’d been naïve enough to think of herself as level-headed.

A mirthless laugh popped a tear free of her eye.

Apparently Rodney’s customised right hook had knocked a whole bunch of braincells loose, because if her yesterday-self had even an inkling of what she was about to do, she would have spared herself what was sure to be the stupidest decision in a lifelong repertoire of idiocy and just hopped right off the roof.

Unluckily for her, that damn cursed bottle seemed to have made her a person with a below-averagely functioning brain.

“Si! Siann, wait up!”

Siann whipped around so suddenly that she had to catch herself against the wall. The knee-jerk movement doubled her vision as Derek jogged up to her, scratching at his wiry, unkempt goatee with his eyebrows all knotted up and concerned.

It was his expression that stopped her in her tracks rather than the dizziness. A sudden burst of sadness scorched her throat dry. Despite everything – a collective breadbasket of traumas, lost loved ones, being ground down to bare-minimum living and that being a miracle in itself – it was rare for her to see her friends look genuinely upset. And it stung like all hell to know it was because of her. Their optimism – the fact that they could still smile and joke and carry on with everything - was one of the only things that made her feel like she was still a human being. For all the grudge she held against the Sanctuary, being able to feel a sense of normalcy and see contentment in people she cared about meant more to her than she’d ever realised. Until now. Because as Derek’s eyes swept over the state of her again and he asked her where she was going, his voice caught in a way she’d never heard before.

_I fucking hate myself_.

“I’m gonna go talk to Negan – ask him to give George his job back.”

Derek blanched, his eyes widening as he dropped a hand to his hip. “Si, I say this with all the love in the world: you’re a fucking idiot.”

She gave a single breathless laugh. The reflexive upward pull of her lips made her face ache. “Yeah, I’m aware.”

“You _can’t_ go to Negan – are you kidding me?”

Her attempt to morph her battered face into something reassuring must have looked as pathetic as it felt for all the difference it made to the troubled knot of Derek’s brow. “I have to,” she rasped. “I have to do _something_.”

“You can’t do _anything_ , Si. You can barely stand, for Christ sakes! You really think you’re gonna be able to string together any kind of argument that could make _Negan_ turn over one of his decisions?”

Siann’s lips folded in between her teeth. Her eyes dropped shut. For one miserable moment, common sense snatched the reigns from her desperate temper. She knew Derek was right. Of course he was. Negan wasn’t going to listen to the likes of her. He especially wasn’t going to make himself look fickle by reinstating the head of one of his most productive departments the same day he fired him on the whims of the moronic nobody that got him into trouble in the first place.

Derek pounced on the defeat that sank her shoulders. “What happened was _serious_ , Siann. The fact that Negan himself showed face this morning instead of sending a Savior to do the job pretty much says it all.” He spoke gently, quietly, trying to lull her. A dull pressure bore down on the top of her skull like an open palm. She swivelled her head from side to side, trying to fight off the weakness in her knees.

“I can’t do nothing,” she croaked. Opening her eyes, she swept away a renegade tear with clammy fingers. “I can’t let George take the rap for me.”

“Si, it’s already done,” Derek reasoned sympathetically. “And it’s not you he’s taking the rap for, it’s those two dickheads rotting in the cells.”

“I’ve got to _try_ , man. None of this is George’s fault. He didn’t do a damn thing wrong. Fuck, he vouched for me yesterday. He wanted to stick around and help me with that stupid _fucking_ bat.” She grimaced at Derek’s quiet, paranoid shushing. “If I hadn’t picked a fight with Oliver, none of this would have even _happened_.”

“You don’t _know_ that-”

“George is good at his job – he’s good to _us_. I owe it to him to at least _try_ to work this out! Hell, we _need_ him. He keeps things going. I mean, who knows how long Rodney and Alex are gonna be in time out? With them gone, _and_ him gone, and the smiths piling the pressure on us what with the Saviors’ rush order…” Derek’s eyes, which had drifted ponderingly past her shoulder during her impassioned monologue, slid shut with a heavy sigh. “We’re fucked without him, you know we are. No one else has his experience, or his authority.”

Derek knew a losing battle when he saw one. He dragged a hand down his face, feeling himself beginning to fold against all sense. “I know,” he mumbled.

“George loves his job,” Siann choked out. “We’ve got so little nowadays. I can’t live with knowing I got that taken away from him.”

Derek sighed into his palm, defeated, and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’ll go with you.”

“No,” Siann protested, alarmed.

“Two people speaking up for George is better than one.”

“ _No_ ,” Siann insisted firmly. “I’ve already done enough damage; I won’t drag you down with me.”

“Si…”

“I _won’t_ ,” she growled.

Derek shook his head with a humourless laugh, and Siann knew she’d won this round.

“Well…” he conceded with a weak smile. “I was wrong about you not being able to string together an argument.” Siann’s responding grin was more of an awkward press of her lips. “Hope it convinces Negan.”

_It will_ , she thought – all naïve desperation. _It has to. It will._

Derek squeezed her shoulder. “Promise me you’ll go straight to the infirmary afterwards.”

Siann’s attempt at a joke was even more limp than her attempt at a smile. “Might not have a choice.”

Derek cringed. “I hate your sense of humour.”

She reached up and clasped the hand on her shoulder. “Same here.”

oOo

The Saviors held themselves different than all the people Siann knew. Some of them were stone-faced, stern and severe. They stood rigidly, like real soldiers. Derek had a theory that those were the ones who had seen too much. Only just about everyone had seen too much, and Siann guessed they were just hardasses that had finally found a job that suited them. Others were more thuggish. They sauntered around with their chests out in such a way that their self-assuredness seemed far too close to smug. They were the closest to the top, and they knew it, and they _loved_ it. If Negan was the iron fist of the Sanctuary, then the Saviors were his muscled right arm – and they were all too eager to follow his bad example. Siann recalled one early morning (several months back when she was still feeling the place out) when one of them swanned into their market area while she was wrestling with her threadbare shoelaces. He was a tall man with a tragically receding hairline and a patch of sweat circling the neckline of his t-shirt. He’d strolled up towards one of the food stands, bypassing everyone in line. A young woman had just finished signing her name in the points ledger when the Savior came to the side of her and plucked her fresh bread roll out of her hand. His obnoxious grin smacked as he chewed on a piece of gum with an open mouth. The way he’d fixated on the woman he’d just taken from had made Siann’s skin prickle.

Jodie, the woman who ran the stall, set her jaw. “We got more than that one bit there, you know.”

The Savior had practically had to wrench his stare away from the woman to face Jodie. Siann could only see her back and the slight forward bow of her head, but she noticed the woman’s arms curled tight around herself, her fists clenched at her sides.

“I know,” the guy smirked. He seemed to be revelling in the situation. “But this one’s right here…nice and close, huh?” The woman had held her ground as he gestured the roll towards her face. “And look – sesame seeds. Looks like I got the last fancy one. Ain’t that good for me?”

It had become easy to pick the Saviours out of the crowd after that. If their mannerisms hadn’t become a decent giveaway, another feature of their soldier status set them apart from the workers in more ways than one: all of them were armed. Siann’s weapons had been immediately confiscated upon her arrival at the factory. Those particular alarm bells had practically deafened her – but back then she was exhausted and starved, her hand throbbed painfully, and she was desperate to leech the good out of the situation. Her spun-out mind had reasoned that a measly pocketknife and a gun with two bullets were not only effectively useless against an entire militia, but a fair enough trade for the safety, food and medical attention that had been proffered to coax her there, like meat dangled in front of a skittish stray. So, with fresh water still cool on her tongue, she had handed her shit over as demanded and submitted tensely to a pat-down. She’d learned quickly that the compound’s ‘civilians’ were prohibited from carrying weapons. It had taken a long while for that particular unease to settle in her, especially when she saw the Saviors wearing weapons like cheap accessories. At least that made them easy to spot, she had rationalised.

So when Siann turned a corner in the maze of hallways and spotted a man and woman with guns and knives strapped to their belts, she knew she’d found what she was looking for. Taking a deep breath and reminding herself that she had nothing to lose, Siann walked her ass up to the pair. As soon as she entered their line of sight and their eyes bugged briefly at the sight of her, she knew she had their attention. With as much resolve as she could muster, she cut right to the quick, afraid that if she hesitated for even a moment, her foolish bravery would crumble.

“I have to talk to Negan.”

oOo

_Clang. Clang. Clang…_

An easy smirk pulled at Negan’s mouth as the announcement of his arrival vibrated down the length of his newly prettied-up Lucille. His palm tingled pleasantly. The low echo of her fanfare against the cell door dulled to a silence that positively _dripped_ with anxiety. Negan inhaled deeply, revelling in it, as if the fear emanating from behind those doors wasn’t a mere metaphorical scent. Even the sour tang of vomit that stung his nose wasn’t enough to tamp down on his enthusiasm for _this_ part of his job. Fear almost _was_ a literal smell to him at this point. He used it to mark his territory, keep order, and reign in wayward subordinates like the ones cowering in wait at that very moment. Fear was a valued ally that seldom failed him. Fear was protective – a shadow that warded off scorching sunburn. It kept people in line. Alive. And that made him feel good.

As exasperated as Negan could become with the kind of idiocy that led to rule-breaking, it was always a fun time to flex the power of fear against those who really deserved it. Violence was a necessary evil in this world…but not always. The _fear_ of violence – that shielding shade - was often enough. He avoided the worst kinds of punishment whenever he could. Not only because he wasn’t a _complete_ fucking monster, but because after a while, once people became accustomed to violence – like he had – fear became a less effective deterrent. That would only lead to more idiocy, _more_ violence, more death, and that nullified the entire fucking purpose of what Negan did. He _saved_ people.

Even the two woman-beating fucknuts behind those doors.

Negan’s eyes tightened ponderingly. What he was going to do with these two, he wasn’t sure. It had been pretty plain to see what had gone down the night before. However, he wasn’t sure what to make of it all just yet. There would be punishment of some kind, that was a certainty, but there was still a lot to weigh in. The girl had seemed oddly bent on the fact that the two drunks hadn’t planned to attack her, but Negan wasn’t convinced.

Luckily, court was about to be in-fucking-session.

The dim bulb from the hallway cast a shaft of light into the cell as the door creaked open. Negan’s shadow stretched the length of the room, its crown skimming the shoes of Defendant Number One.

Negan had some tingling inklings about this one.

“How’s the hand doin’?” He murmured.

The guy looked like deep-fried dogshit. He bobbed his head up groggily, squinting in the sudden light. Clearly the vodka had done a number on him. Still, he snapped to fairly quickly, drink-reddened eyes flitting between Negan and the hand that he was cradling against his chest. He unfurled his arm slowly, shakily, and lifted it for Negan to see like he had done the night before.

“ ‘S broken, I think,” he croaked.

Negan pursed his lips, examining the figure sprawled against the back wall of the cell. He thought about striding inside, closing him in and putting the pressure on…

No. Not yet. He figured this guy for the type to bitch out of the situation - deflect, deny, deflect, deny – and, frankly, he didn’t have the patience.

There were easier ways to crack a man like that.

“I reckon so,” Negan replied. He strolled into the cell with an eerie ease, lifting Lucille off his shoulder and brandishing her under his loving gaze. “Lucille… _well_. She may be a beautiful gal, but she does tend to lack a woman’s touch. Between you and me…she’s actually kind of a _bitch_ …but, hell - doesn’t bother me. She’s more _fun_ that way.”

Negan’s eyes slid from his bat to the rigid man on the ground, whose own eyes were now far less bleary. They watched him with an alert nervousness, darting between his face and Lucille. Negan supposed he couldn’t blame the guy for being leery of her, given how she’d fucked his phalanges an’ all.

“But you know all about that…” Negan lowered into a crouch that his knees cursed him for, _tap tap tapping_ Lucille against the concrete floor. “Don’t you?”

Fella seemed almost bewildered. “I-I-“

Negan decided to move this thing along. “Now, boy, here’s the thing. You know why I’m here. As it so happens, the girl clammed up. Hardly got a peep out of her. But what I _do_ know is that some serious shit went down last night, and as a result, people got hurt. And good ol’ George hadn’t a clue about said shit, so I _fired_ his sorry ass this morning.”

On all accounts, and judging by the two dozen faces frozen in horror upon that particular spectacle earlier on, George was well-liked by his workers. Yet there was barely a twitch from the guy responsible. A quick downward glance, then…nada. _Interesting_.

“So…I need you to fill in the blanks,” Negan went on. “Because now I am down not one, not two, not even three! _Four_ workers in one of my most productive departments. And needless to say…I am not-” _tap_ “-best-” _tap_ “pleased…” _tap_.

Sweat-greased strands of hair trembled over his forehead as the man in the metaphorical hotseat writhed stiffly against the wall, squirming into a more upright position. Once settled, he let out a sigh that Negan imagined was meant to seem reluctantly conceding, but instead came off stilted and performative.

“It wasn’t as bad as it looked,” he reasoned.

Negan’s smile strained incredulously. “ _Really_? You’ve had all night long to come up with your spin and _that_ is the oh-so original pitch you landed on? ‘ _It’s not what it looks like’_?” Negan rocked back on the balls of his feet, chuckling despite himself. Maybe he’d given these boys too much credit. He’d had this one pegged as something of a manipulator, but if that was truly the best he could come up with then this was gonna be easier than he’d hoped. “That is actually kind of adorable. Can you believe this shit, Simon?”

Genius’s eyes shot to the doorway, where Simon stood with his thumbs hooked in his belt, moustache perked upwards at the corners, clearly entertained. “Ohhh, I believe it.”

Negan thumbed at the corner of his empty smile, shaking his head. “Man…”

“L-Look, Negan, sir, I’m not trying to _spin_ anything here, I swear.”

_He swears_ , Negan scoffed internally. Simon crossed his arms over his chest.

“And I just want to make it clear, it wasn’t entirely her fault-“

_Her_ fault?

Well, how about _that_. Negan had to admit, that wasn’t what he had been expecting. _Interesting indeed._

“Is that so?” He indulged - probing. “Most fellas would be a lot less understanding if a broad broke their bones like that…”

Then came that patronising sigh again. “Look, I’m not gonna say that I’m not angry about it. But you saw that I gave as good as I got, so as far as I’m concerned, Siann and I are square.”

Negan pursed his lips again. “That’s oddly generous.”

“Like I said, it _wasn’t_ what it looked like. I know how punishments are around here, and to tell the truth, I don’t want to see that happen to her. Am I mad at her for this whole thing? Yeah, of course, but it _was_ just a misunderstanding. We shouldn’t have brought her that booze in the first place. She was stressed, what with…” He trailed off, twitching some still-functioning fingers at Lucille. “And I guess we figured a drink would help her out, but it just made her more edgy the more she had. So then I made some crack about, uh, helping her _relax_ , if you know what I mean…”

Negan smirked. “I have _five_ wives, kid. I _know_ what you mean.”

The guy’s lips creased upward a fraction. “Right. Well, she didn’t like that. Got all angry. I tried to tell her I was kidding, but she wouldn’t listen. She started calling me names, accusing me of being some sort of pervert, then _I_ got mad…and we fought.”

“That does tend to happen when folks drink,” Negan mused obligingly.

“Yeah. And, look, I’m not proud of it, but I’m willing to bet that she isn’t either. So I’m willing to bury the hatchet if she is. Can’t say there’ll be no hard feelings, but now – especially if George is gone – at the very least we should still be able to work together.”

Negan’s gloved fingertips grazed his beard and he dipped his head. “Well, I gotta say, you surprised me, Rodney.”

He watched his prisoner’s eyes flicker with confusion, caught off guard by the sudden use of his name rather than another epithet. “I did?”

Negan’s eyebrows bounced theatrically as he nodded. “That was pretty gallant of you. I mean look at’cha – sitting here in your own vomit with that fucked-up hand. Not many guys would be willing to let this sort of thing slide. It’s that whole manly pride thing, you know? Most would feel the need to take action…like shoving their sleazy hands down a woman’s pants to prove a point, y’know what I mean?”

Rodney’s already pale face greyed dramatically, and his eyes, tight with apprehension, blew wide. “Whoa- whoa, no! I-I didn’t do anything like that!”

“Y’see, what surprised me about you,” Negan emphasised, drowning out Rodney’s brittle attempt at assertive denial, “is how on earth you managed to make it this far, given that not only are you clearly a _moron_ , but you’re not _nearly_ as good a liar as you _think_ you are.”

Rodney, with all of his rehearsed lines, froze at the jarring change in the script and stuttered into silence. Negan followed the stiff side-to-side twitches of his head with the giddiness of a kid watching an ant scramble under his magnifying glass.

“Not to mention…” Negan grinned toothily, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Your choice of accomplices is rather…lacking.”

He slid his stare to the door indicatively. Simon huffed a silent chuckle and reached to the side, yanking Alex into the doorway.

“See, your little friendo here has a sliver more of a conscience than you do,” Simon proclaimed. “Not to mention-” Alex flinched as Simon clapped him twice on the sweat-drenched chest of his t-shirt “-a healthy sense of self-preservation. Prettiest canary song I ever did hear. Now that sort of respect for authority will go a _looong_ way for folks nowadays.” He slung a heavy arm over Alex’s shoulders. “Isn’t that right, friend?”

Alex’s bowed head nodded shakily.

Realisation rushed in. Rodney might have been a snake, but he wasn’t a fool. Whether Negan ever believed him or not was irrelevant. Someone had to be punished for what had happened. A slow seeping of ice-cold rage bunched his shoulders - his fate had been sealed before that cell door ever opened.

Alex’s arm wavered at his side as he managed to meet the loathing stare of a man who, only a handful of hours ago, had been his friend. “I… m’sorry, man,” he croaked, defeated.

Out of options, Rodney abandoned any attempt at playing innocent. “I’ll kill you.”

Alex shivered under the weight of Simon’s arm.

“Well, now, that doesn’t sound very contrite.” It was Negan’s turn to put on a performance. “Does that sound contrite to you, Simon?”

“No sir-ee.”

“No…” Negan mused. He turned a low-lidded stare on Rodney. “And here I was willing to have you rot in this cell for only two weeks! But now, I’m not so sure…”

“Well…” Simon pressed his lips together. “That crunched-up hand does need time to heal.”

“Right you are, Simon. Four weeks should do it.” His grin dropped from his eyes. “The doc’ll come down in a few _long, dark_ days to make sure that this hand-” Negan struck, gripping those gnarled fingers tight in his leather glove. Rodney screamed. Alex jerked backwards but was held firm in Simon’s clutches as Rodney groaned though gritted teeth. _There_ , Negan thought serenely. _There’s that fear._ “-Is in proper. Working. Order. Cause you’re gonna need it. Fence duty is no freakin’ joke. One foot wrong, and-” Rodney’s howl rang through the cinderblock corridors as Negan’s grasp constricted. “ _Well_ , accidents happen. But don’t worry. Your fairweather friend over there’ll be more than able to show you the ropes by the time you leave this room.”

It was Alex’s turn for a wash of realisation. He recoiled, teary eyes blinking. “W-What? I- But I-I-”

“You, you!” Simon exclaimed. “ _Yes_. You indeed! Now we are grateful for your cooperation, but y’see the thing is that you were in fact an active participant in the incident which _required_ said cooperation! You disrupted a critical task assigned by the boss-man himself with alcohol and shenanigans! Now what kind of respect for authority is that?”

Alex’s slacked jaw quivered as he glanced frantically between Simon, Negan, and finally, Rodney. “But he- he said he’ll kill me!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that!” Negan teased, still clamping Rodney’s hand in his fist. He turned to his new inmate with a triumphant smile. “Who would want the trouble of getting by in this world with one hand _and_ half a face?”

Negan relinquished his punishing grip, dimples deepening as he watched Rodney gasp and fold his arm to his chest. His body shuddered breathlessly when Negan reach up and clap the side of his neck. Rodney’s eyes shut against the faux-friendly gesture as Negan chuckled throatily and rose. Simon towed Alex away. Rodney cringed, tight-jawed, as Negan swung Lucille up onto his shoulder with a happy head-shake.

He strolled out the way he came in, whistling, and turned to watch the prisoner sink into himself as the door creaked shut and left him to the mercy of the dark.

oOo

“So, are those two gonna be a permanent set of garden gnomes or is this merely a detention-type situation?”

Simon kept pace with Negan as they headed back towards the Saviors’ conference room. That fun little nut-cracking session had only been one item on a double-fucking-digit list of bullshit that needed seeing to by the day’s end.

“Depends,” Negan replied.

“On what, exactly?”

Negan shrugged. Lucille rolled closer to his neck. Feeling her weight on his shoulder was a pleasing sensation, particularly after her absence most of yesterday. Having her out of reach just felt all darn kinds of wrong. “Remorse. Reformation. Usefulness. We’ll have to see.”

Simon chuckled. “And the girl? She looked pretty banged up.”

Ah, yes. “Odd little thing.” That one was difficult to read. He wasn’t altogether sure what to make of her. Luckily for him, he didn’t particularly care. Squabbles like that cropped up every once in a while, some more serious than others, but this one, at least, was done with. He was ready to wash his hands of it and get back to more pressing matters.

“Any punishments coming her way?”

“Nah. Not necessary.”

“Too pretty?” Simon smirked.

Negan cast him a narrow-eyed grin. “Too useful. She did a bang-up job on my Lucille. Like I said, that department is down enough hands already, and as it just so happens, we are busy as shit. I need her where she is. That, and those boys aren’t the only ones being used as an example.”

Simon’s expression furrowed as they rounded the corner to the conference room. “What do you mean?”

“I mean there were attackers and there was a victim. The attackers are fenced and the victim gets to mosey on with her measly little life. Once word gets around – and it will – it’ll mean less shit to scrape off our heels and less grimy hands wasted on fence duty.” Negan’s smile brightened as he flashed his teeth. “Not to mention, she fought back. That kind of behaviour is worth encouraging. Can’t make our people strong if they fold at the first sign of trouble. Help those who help themselves and all that-”

Negan stopped, surprised, when he pushed open the conference room door. There, perched on the edge of one of his chairs with Arat hovering over her and both hands pinched between her knees, was the girl in question.

“…Shit,” he finished. An incredulous half-smile squinted his eye.

His hands weren’t to be washed yet, it seemed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I couldn't in good conscience upload this chapter without, at the very very least, expressing my undying support for the BLM movement. BLACK LIVES MATTER. Period. It is not a debate (and any comments that try to do so - with me or with other commenters - will be deleted).
> 
> A great twitter thread of BLM petitions: https://twitter.com/kiesdaya/status/1265782360252887040
> 
> The petition "Justice for George Floyd" on Change.org: https://t.co/nMaj0A0s0B?amp=1
> 
> A youtube video where all ad revenue goes towards charities supporting the movement. A fantastically easy way to contribute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCgLa25fDHM&feature=youtu.be
> 
> And for anyone who rolled their eyes upon seeing this note and feels like this movement is overtaking everything - that's the point. Protests paved the way for the foundation of so many human rights. Police brutality benefits no one but the corrupt and bloodthirsty. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, and I hope you're all safe and well.


	5. Penitent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry for the wait!! I do have an actual excuse though as I've literally uprooted my entire life, and I also ran out of pre-written chapters, so the world was sort of against me in that regard. But anyway, here it is! I will try kick my ass into gear regarding this fic because I do like it and want to see it through to the end, but I'm about to have a lot less free time on my hands, so please bear with me!

> This was clearly an unusual situation.
> 
> Siann and Negan eyed each other, silently feeling out this uncharted territory. She did her best not to shift in her seat, not to give away just how out of sorts she felt, or how it was slowly dawning on her just how much she might have already fucked up.
> 
> The other man from the night before – Simon, she recalled vaguely – was staring at her with his brows so high they rolled creases into his forehead. The Savior that had brought her was rattling off some kind of explanation as to what the hell she was doing there, but Siann couldn’t tell if Negan was paying attention with how laser-focused his scrutiny was. Her chaperone finished her spiel with an “I thought it best to bring her to you, sir,” and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
> 
> Despite Negan’s immobilising stare, the movement redirected Siann’s attention. The woman hovered over her with otherwise soldier-like stillness, one hand resting on the backstrap of the pistol belted to her hip. She watched her silent leader with a flicker of her eyes, looking…not quite nervous, but…unsure. Like she might’ve done something wrong.
> 
> That’s when Siann realised that Derek might have been right.
> 
> This _was_ an unusual situation. People didn’t just _demand_ to talk to Negan whenever the need arose. The workers didn’t find their way into the Saviors’ levels of the Sanctuary unless they were specifically called upon. Siann hadn’t been called upon, she’d muscled her way in – all but kicked the door down – and that was why everyone in the room looked just a little bewildered.
> 
> Well, Simon might have looked bewildered. The woman next to her looked girded, steeling herself for whatever reaction Negan might have. And Negan…
> 
> Siann’s spine calcified.
> 
> When she turned back to Negan, he was still watching her, and for the first time it dawned on her that she had absolutely no idea what he was thinking. Instinct had her searching his face, desperate for any useful information. His eyes were slightly narrowed, his lips were slightly parted, and that was it. He didn’t look angry. He didn’t look surprised. He didn’t look indifferent, or pleased, or inconvenienced. He just observed her without a word, and all Siann had to go on was the only real thing she knew about him: _dangerous_.
> 
> This knowledge had allowed her to be cautious during their first brief exchange. Having that shred of insight had made her feel like she’d had just a tiny amount of control over the situation – she was able to tune her behaviour, speak when he addressed her with as much courtesy as she could muster - and even if it didn’t make her _safe_ , she was able to fool herself into thinking that safety was an attainable possibility. During their second, somehow even more stressful exchange, Siann had been disoriented and in pain, still fearful, and still attempting cautiousness, however ineffectually. Then, she’d had the advantage of not being the one hauled ‘downstairs.’ She hadn’t been naïve enough to hope that he’d taken pity on her, only that he had a favourable view of her relative to her unluckier colleagues. She’d escaped both encounters in one piece. Now, she wasn’t so sure that that luck hadn’t run dry.
> 
> Adjusting to Negan’s dangerousness when he had other priorities was one thing. Now she’d gone and flung herself right into the lion’s jaws, and that mask that she’d disparaged meant she had no fucking clue what that actually meant.
> 
> All at once, a weariness draped over her, heavy as chainmail.
> 
> “Thank you, Arat,” Negan murmured. His lips pulled upwards a fraction, but the rest of his face remained frozen, and Siann wasn’t sure whether or not it was meant to be a smile. “I’ll take it from here.”
> 
> Arat nodded rigidly and took her leave, skirting between the two men and vanishing. Simon directed a look at Negan that could have said a thousand things or nothing at all, and for the first time since entering the room, Negan turned away from her. Siann didn’t relax. The push-pull of shallow breaths became a conscious thing as soon as she picked up on just how pressingly _quiet_ it had become. She didn’t want to make a sound, didn’t want to move, didn’t want to blink. She just watched as Simon and Negan communicated silently for the space of three breaths before Simon twisted slowly on his heels and left as well, pulling the door shut behind him. And Siann was alone with Negan. Again.
> 
> Derek was for sure right about one thing: she was, without a _molecule_ of doubt, an absolute and total _fucking_ idiot.
> 
> Negan turned his head back to her with that same empty expression and if it weren’t for the dread still lingering behind her ribs, she only would have felt so, so tired.
> 
> _You want this_ , she told herself. _You’re here for a reason. It’s not about you. Do something right!_
> 
> Clearing his throat, he slid past her and draped himself into his chair. He took up its entire space, arms spread out over the armrests as he placed Lucille gently on the table. Propping an ankle up across his knee, one finger _tap, tap, tap_ ped against his cheek.
> 
> “You _still_ look like shit,” he proclaimed.
> 
> Siann swallowed hard against the automatic lurch of hate in her stomach. She couldn’t afford to hate him – not here, not when she _needed_ something. She forced a smile to flicker over her face.
> 
> “Can’t look worse than I feel.”
> 
> “I wager you haven’t seen yourself.”
> 
> “Well, I’ve been busy.”
> 
> “Ah. _Well_ , I’ve been busy too.” He reached out and used light fingertips to roll Lucille against the table. The sound of her barbs drumming against the wood (quiet and persistent, like rainfall) prickled down Siann’s oesophagus. “Ask me what I’ve been doing.”
> 
> He was mocking her, toying with her, and suddenly the sound of that wretched bat felt like a physical touch she couldn’t jerk away from.
> 
> _Fix it. Just do what he wants!_
> 
> “What have you been doing?” She asked, as obliging as a hostage.
> 
> “Glad you asked.” Always so damn pleased with himself, Negan grinned. “ _I_ have been down to see your little friends.”
> 
> An instant jolt of worry zipped her eyes to Lucille, clean as a whistle - a reflex that earned her more teeth.
> 
> Still, she played along. “And?”
> 
> “They were _awfully_ chatty,” he teased, clearly loving this dance he was leading her through, gleefully tweaking his puppet strings.
> 
> That could have meant anything. Her anguish over George had wiped them from her mind like leaves dashed off a windshield. Negan had _talked_ to them. Rodney’d had his say after a whole night to think on how to say it, how to twist it, how to make Negan believe it-
> 
> Siann timed her breaths to the rhythm of Lucille’s rotations. The barbs she’d sharpened pressed craters into the table and plucked themselves free again. There was no blood on her. There’d been no gathering in front of the furnace to dole out Negan’s _justice_. Rodney was alive and unhurt and maybe Siann had just saved Negan the trouble of tracking her down again-
> 
> Breathe.
> 
> The dance wasn’t over yet. She _had_ to play along. If she gave him what he wanted, let him paw her around a little, this could still work out in her favour. She wasn’t new to this dancefloor. She could pirouette with the best of them.
> 
> “That so?” Steady. Light. Engaging.
> 
> “Mmm _hmm_.” He twisted his chair slowly, side to side. His eyes were _glued_ to her; that steadfast stare drank in every stiff twitch of her face, every anxious pulse in her jaw and the fight to keep her brows from clutching together. He barely moved a muscle, but it felt as if she was being circled by a jungle cat, anticipating slavering fangs beneath an unreadable face. He was dizzying. The room seemed to sway with him, as though the world was literally bending to his mythic control, like it was following his magnetic pull-
> 
> Or that was a belated concussion talking and Siann needed to get her fucking shit together.
> 
> She permitted herself a grounding blink. Maybe she needed to come at this differently – for her own sake. Negan had heard her side, he’d heard Rodney’s side, and he had his opinions on both of them. First impressions were important. She didn’t know what he thought of her – but _he_ did. So maybe it wasn’t him she needed to fool.
> 
> This demure little nobody business was doing nothing but boxing her in, wrapping her up in his strings. She couldn’t think clearly if they were choking her. Maybe it was time to switch things up a little...play the game the way she knew how.
> 
> Siann allowed herself to move.
> 
> Her fingers fumbled in her lap, nice and subtle. Her next breath sank her chest. He liked the fear in her – it entertained him – but to her it was useless. If the only thing she could control was herself, then so be it. The following breath inflated her chest, up and out just slightly, and with obviously-fake confidence and a twitchy smile, she asked: “Anything good?”
> 
> She could be two things at once. Distracting Negan by letting him have his little limping mouse gave her room to think as much as the smog smothering her would permit. She had a goal here. It was time to focus.
> 
> “Your friend Rodney,” Negan swept some crooked fingers in her general direction, “is one slippery little asshole. But, hell. You already knew that. Didn’cha?”
> 
> She still didn’t trust him, still couldn’t really accept the relief that fluttered in her stomach – but this was a tangent she could work with.
> 
> “He’s not my friend.”
> 
> “No,” Negan murmured. “Decidedly not.”
> 
> Siann dropped her eyes from his for one brief, deliberately contemplative moment. “What about Alex? What’s gonna happen to him?”
> 
> “Fence duty,” Negan replied. Something in her expression must have slipped, because the corner of his mouth twitched slightly, and he went on: “But don’t worry, after a couple weeks his old pal Rodney’ll be available to keep him company. And after Alex having been such a good boy for me, I’m sure they’ll have _plenty_ to talk about. Either way, neither of them are gonna bother you again. I _guarantee_ it.”
> 
> In spite of the bite of guilt at the idea of Alex – barely more than a bystander in what had happened – being subjected to a life slaving away at the fence ( _becauseof_ _me_ _becauseof_ _me_ _becauseof_ _me_ _-),_ her battle had already been picked, and there was a less deserving victim she was here to fight for. So, she took some initiative.
> 
> “Thank you, Negan.”
> 
> She watched through her eyelashes as a bright, smug smile practically cracked Negan’s face in half. Oh, yes. She knew he’d like that.
> 
> “ _Well_. Just _look how good_ you can be...”
> 
> A vague sense of nervousness came over her, and yet playing along was automatic, a pre-programmed reflex. Holding his stare, with one breath she lifted her chin and dipped her chest again – all coquettish subtlety. The world had eaten away at some of her more useful features, but she’d caught enough stares directed down her shirt to know that she still had _something_ going for her. For a moment, when she realised not only what she was doing, but that she didn’t know how to feel when Negan retained that unnerving fixation, something itched at her. It wasn’t quite shame, but more like a distant, hazy memory of what shame was supposed to feel like. This wasn’t what she wanted, but that didn’t matter. Undoing her mistakes, getting George his job back, that was what was important. That itch melted into something else – hope, maybe. This could actually work. She could-
> 
> “...Which is a little bit confusing given how you’ve disobeyed me.”
> 
> Siann froze. Negan’s engaging expression faded into that same one he’d worn when he first saw her, falling back on some pre-programming of his own. Her stomach jolted.
> 
> “What?” She bit out.
> 
> He surged out of his stillness, planting both feet on the ground as he leaned towards her. With his elbows propped onto his knees and hands folded together, he tipped his index fingers towards her face. “You sleep down in the common area, right? The one without the walls and the doors, just some sheets and a couple dozen people, isn’t that right?”
> 
> Shocked and stumbling all over again, Siann just nodded.
> 
> “Uh huh,” Negan mused. “So, my not-so-good girl, perhaps you can explain to me just why you decided to risk the lives of all those fine folks when you _didn’t_ go to the infirmary last night, _like_ I told you to, and instead curled up all cosy in your own little bed. Hmm?”
> 
> The twist in the conversation was somehow more jarring than the change in Negan’s disposition. Siann was utterly caught off guard, and her unpreparedness was glaring. Her mouth gaped around the breathless “I-I don’t-” that she managed to scramble together. As the last of Negan’s playfulness slipped away with an impatient clench of his jaw, any fantasy of control that Siann had clung to went up in a final spiral of smoke.
> 
> “Do you have _any_ fucking idea just how _dangerous_ head injuries are? How unpredictable they can be?” He asked sternly. “You could have died in your fucking sleep and massacred everyone around you. There are kids down there – kids _you_ likely see every day – and you could have _killed_ them because you, for _some_ reason, didn’t feel like doing what you were god damn told. _So_. Go ahead, sweetheart. Dazzle me with this stroke of brilliance that led you to believe you could pick and fucking choose which of my orders you deign to follow.”
> 
> Staggered, Siann had to fight not to curl in on herself. That dizziness swirled the air around her, determined not to go ignored any longer. Her eyes slipped shut as Negan’s lecture buzzed in her ears. All at once she lost her grip on the thoughts of the danger she was in, any concept of strategy, even George’s job. Weight seeped into her limbs again, pressing down on the top of her head. It felt as if the ground was literally trying to swallow her. She wanted it to.
> 
> Negan was _right_. People could have died and that, along with everything else that had gone so terribly disastrously wrong in the last day, would have been her fault.
> 
> God, that ached.
> 
> Through the ringing in her ears, she heard herself speak. “...couldn’t think straight,” she mumbled.
> 
> “Obviously,” Negan scoffed.
> 
> Though she knew she deserved the derision, he just _riled_ something in her. That loathing she’d tried to push to the side was rearing its head, sensing the lapse in her rationality. She realised that her gaze had dropped and she was, once again, staring at Negan’s boots.
> 
> Siann forced herself to straighten, pulling her slumped shoulders back. She dragged her stare up. Negan’s pants and leather jacket lurched in front of her for a moment, but she blinked determinedly, and his face appeared in her line of sight.
> 
> “I didn’t mean to...disobey you,” she said, clearer this time. “Really. I could barely see straight by the time I left the shop. I was hurt, and exhausted. Putting innocent people in danger is the last thing I’d want. I’m sorry.”
> 
> Negan’s next smile looked unnatural on his face. For a few lagging seconds, he stayed silent, and Siann was sure she was about to find out just how mightily unpleasant one of his cells actually was. Then, his hands clapped together loudly, startling her.
> 
> “Well,” he declared. “No blood, no foul. _This_ time.”
> 
> Siann exhaled. Surely it wasn’t that easy. Alex was fenced for next to nothing and she had put people’s lives in danger. She watched as Negan arched back into his chair, all of a sudden perfectly unbothered. It was...confusing. It made no sense. The rules and reason of the Sanctuary couldn’t truly be contingent on Negan’s whims. _Could_ they?
> 
> Then again, wasn’t that exactly what she had come here hoping for?
> 
> “I gotta say, sweetheart, you sure know how to butter a man up – which leads me to my _next_ question: why, exactly, did you come hunting me down? To make my day with all these pretty thank you’s and whatnot?”
> 
> Siann’s heart galloped. “I needed to talk to you about something.”
> 
> She could only hope the rasping desperation in her voice wasn’t as obvious to Negan as it seemed to her. Pursing his lips, he twirled his fingers, gesturing for her to get on with it. Nerves snaked through her belly.
> 
> “Please,” she begged earnestly; this was no time for pride. “Please, give George his job back.”
> 
> Negan tilted his head, grinning widely. “Aw,” he crooned. “Look at those big, sad eyes. I have to admit, that is _cute_ as hell, honey.”
> 
> “So...he can come back to work?”
> 
> Negan crooked his jaw and hummed a chuckle. “No way in fucking hell.”
> 
> Siann stopped breathing. The heaviness sluiced from her. The lightheadedness seeped into her bloodstream, frosting her torso and limbs to a ghostly nothingness.
> 
> _So, there it is._
> 
> “Why?” She whispered.
> 
> Teeth, then: “Because _I said so_.”
> 
> Horror filled the empty space where her body had been. Rage twined through her like tendons. They animated her, and abruptly, she was out of her chair.
> 
> “ _Why_?” She barked. “Because you want to punish me? Fine! Do it! Lock me in a cell, put me on the fence. Shit, burn my fucking face! Don’t punish an innocent man just because you want to teach me a lesson! George didn’t do a damn thing wrong, and you know it! All he’s ever done is work hard for you! Hell, if you want that shop to stay running, _he’s_ the guy you want running it. The only reason we’re able to stay afloat is because of him! Give me one good god damn reason you’d cripple an entire department like that, because I sure as fuck can’t see one!”
> 
> Siann couldn’t decipher the slit-eyed smile that slowly carved into Negan’s face. She clenched her teeth, heedless of the pain thundering in her head or any remnants of caution she could possibly have clutched at.
> 
> Negan gazed at her in her frenzy. He was perfectly still, unblinking, poised taut before the pounce. She was in more danger than ever before. George’s job was dust. Now, hers likely was as well. Whatever happened next, she realised, was completely out of her hands. She officially had nothing left to lose.

> It was a dizzyingly freeing thought.
> 
> When Negan lifted himself out of his chair, micrifying her once again – even when he swung Lucille up onto his shoulder so close by her face that it made loose strands of hair flutter against her neck – Siann was rocked by the dawning awareness that she did not feel afraid of him.
> 
> It was a small comfort given that her impassioned tirade had hauled her that much closer to passing out. Her head felt hot, and so heavy that she wasn’t sure if she was holding it up straight. Her stomach ached with nausea, her ears rang, and the taste of metal sapped the moisture from her mouth. But she stood straight and tall and as strong as she could, and didn’t even notice the room twisting around her as she glared into Negan’s eyes.
> 
> “Oh,” Negan whispered, so close that the breath tickled her eyelashes. “I _get_ it now. Sweetheart, you must have got brain damage after all, which would sure explain a lot of things – like the frankly astonishing lapse in intelligence and basic fuckin’ survival instinct that made you think that it was in any way, shape or form, a good idea to speak to me like that...”
> 
> A small, defiant breath huffed out of her nose. “And if anything I said was _wrong_ , I might feel kinda bad about it.”
> 
> Negan’s shoulders drew back and, despite himself, his “huh” teetered on a smirk. “Listen, sweetheart, I like you – sort of. I mean, you have something of a sack on you at least, which is more than I can say for a disappointing majority of folks. But you are gonna need to perk those ears _right_ the fuck up. A sack ain’t shit without a brain to steer it, and darlin’, you need to do some goddamn rewiring, because you are _fast_ heading down the path to being a real liability – to yourself, to other people, and _most_ important, to me.”
> 
> The friction between Siann’s grinding teeth could have sparked a fire. “To you,” she grit out.
> 
> “Oh yeah,” Negan rumbled. “’Cause you, my dear, seem to attract trouble like fly paper and dive into it head-first. And so long as that trouble affects other people, puts them in danger, threatens their wellbeing...it makes them – _and_ you – that much harder to save. And believe you me, I didn’t get this far taking chances on liabilities.” Negan paused, letting the threat taste the air. “But I don’t want things to go that way for you, ‘cause like I said: people are a resource. And thanks to that little debacle last night, I am down quite a few resources. And, like _you_ said, I need to keep this place running.”
> 
> “Well,” Siann exhaled, face pinched tight with revulsion. “At the end of the day, being down resources is _your_ choice, isn’t it?”
> 
> Negan perused her face once again, humming thoughtfully. This loud and brazen defiance was a surprising twist. He figured after she’d spit her little monologue and got it out of her system a bit of common sense would return to her, humble her back to that straight-lacer he’d met just yesterday. She’d seemed so...docile. Unassuming. Didn’t seem like the type to let her temper get the best of her, despite Rodney’s lame attempt to paint her as unstable. Didn’t seem like any kind of type, really – just one more nondescript cog in his machine. But now some switch in that damaged little brain had flipped all of a sudden, and Negan realised, belatedly, that there had been flickers of this sharp, glowering person before – a tight expression or stiff demeanour that he’d put down to nerves, and, of course, that ill-fated swing of Lucille. It was sorta intriguing, sorta fun, and sorta really irritating.
> 
> “Swear to God,” he mused. “You’ve got a different mask on every time I see you.”
> 
> Siann’s eyes flared briefly.
> 
> “At least there’s something under mine,” she murmured.
> 
> Negan rocked his head to the side, exhaling through pursed lips. “Oh, I _know_. I’m lookin’ right at it. Tell you what, that sweet and innocent act you had going up until now, that was somethin’. Almost got you right under the radar. But I got your number now, honey. You got somethin’ sharp in you. Shit, if your decision-making abilities weren’t so drastically shit, you’d have got me wondering why on earth you rot away down in that sweaty little shop when you could be out makin’ waves in that sorry world.”
> 
> It took a minute for it to register with her what exactly he was saying. “You think I’d want to be one of your thugs?”
> 
> Negan’s brow twitched fleetingly at the word. “You do have the fire for it – but some fires burn out hot and quick, and you seem like the type. Too... _passionate_.” Humour dashed over his face as if he’d forgotten he was supposed to be angry. “Not exactly congruent with keeping people safe, now is it?”
> 
> That was a deliberate jab, and it stung low in her gut. “You don’t give a _shit_ about keeping people safe, not really.”
> 
> This, of all things, was what curdled Negan’s expression. His mouth contorted into a sneer. He slid even closer to her _._ In spite of her newfound reckless abandon, a zap of dormant instinct jolted her belly when she felt the toes of his boots press against the rubber tips of her sneakers. She hated it – _hated_ that, even now, part of her still wanted to cower away from him. But she didn’t. She didn’t budge an inch.
> 
> Negan smirked meanly, leaned in, and whispered: “ _Well, seems that neither did George, now did he_?”
> 
> She felt that clapback across the face. “It wasn’t George’s _fault_ – he wasn’t even _there_!”
> 
> Negan paused, squinting thoughtfully. “Why were you there so late, anyway? It couldn’t have taken you that long to work on Lucille.”
> 
> “I had other work to do first.”
> 
> “Must have been a lot of work.”
> 
> Siann’s teeth bared. “You can’t _seriously_ be complaining about me doing my job.”
> 
> Negan’s dimples concaved. “Absolutely not. What I _am_ complaining about, however, is George’s poor organisation.”
> 
> “Poor-? What are you _talking_ about? I’m telling you, George had nothing to _do_ with it!”
> 
> “George had everything to do with it. He was in charge.”
> 
> “So _what_?”
> 
> “So he could have assigned your work to someone else, given you the time to work on Lucille within your designated work hours.”
> 
> “My friends _offered_ to do some of my work for me and I said _no_. I _wanted_ to work on Lucille after-hours so I wouldn’t have to do it with a _fucking_ audience. Hell, George even tried to stay and help me but I sent him away because _I_ insisted that I could handle my own shit! _None_ of this is his fault! It’s all because of _my_ decisions, not his!”
> 
> “ _Wrong,_ ” Negan growled. “It was his department. It was _his_ decision not to _make_ you do your work practically. Instead he let you do what you fucking pleased. _He_ made the decision to leave one of his workers in the position to be fucking _assaulted_ – by two _more_ of _his_ workers, I might add.”
> 
> “He’s not a fucking prophet! How was he supposed to know that shit would happen?”
> 
> “Being in charge of people means anticipating what might befall them. His lack of foresight left a young woman vulnerable to attack.”
> 
> “ _Attack_? No one fucking _attacked_ me. We _fought._ Hell, I hit Rodney _first_. They were just being jerks!”
> 
> “One of them shoved his hand down your pants and touched you against your will – that, my dear, is an _attack_.”
> 
> “No it _isn’t_! It was a gross dick move but they didn’t _attack_ me!”
> 
> Negan eyed her with a look of contemplative curiosity. Even now, with her cards splayed across his table, he didn’t really understand her. “Then why did you defend yourself? Huh? If what they did was _so_ harmless, what possessed you to club the fuck out of that wandering hand with Lucille?”
> 
> Siann paused. “We can’t be short two workers _and_ our boss just because _I_ made some stupid decisions. Punish _me_ , not everyone else.”
> 
> “Believe it or not, it’s not all about you, sweetheart. See, unlike your pal Georgie, I _do_ know how to make the right calls. If word gets around that I let two men get away with touching a woman like that, then other fuckers are going to try their luck at it. Making an example of those shitheads makes every woman in this building that little bit safer. You know how this place stays standing? Because of _my rules_. Because I won’t tolerate reckless incompetence that lowers the bar for every other asshole in charge of one of the departments that keeps this place going.”
> 
> Finally, Siann shrank. Again, at least partially, Negan was right.
> 
> _I fucking hate him so much_.
> 
> “It’s not that simple,” she said, quieter.
> 
> “ _No_ ,” Negan taunted. “It isn’t simple at all. And, hell, maybe if you could see an inch past your own fucking nose, you might have realised that the entire goddamn universe doesn’t revolve around you and your whims.”
> 
> Siann snapped a glare up to his face. “This was never about me.”
> 
> Negan gave that strained, throaty chuckle of his. “Of course it was. You came stormin’ on down here because _you_ felt guilty and _you_ wanted to sleep at night knowing you buckled up them big-girl bootstraps and did your damndest to right _your_ wrongs.”
> 
> Siann felt her face twitch furiously while Negan grinned, sure as shit that he finally had her pinned. “You don’t know anything about me,” she snapped. “You want to talk about seeing past your own nose? How about you give it a fucking try rather than looking down it at all the people you have kneeling on the ground for you? You don’t give a shit about any of the people you so-called ‘ _saved,_ ’ not really. If you did you’d give them more than just sheets to protect them at night. You’d actually know what the fuck was happening in your departments and not just when something goes wrong. Hell, you think you know _so_ much about me? I bet, even after _all_ this, you don’t even know my fucking _name_.”
> 
> Siann was spared the opening of Negan’s tight smirk by a knock at the door.
> 
> “What?” He demanded.
> 
> Siann kept her eyes on him as the door opened behind her and someone shuffled in. Negan didn’t honour them with any attention either.
> 
> “Uh, sorry, sir, but Gavin just arrived from the outpost,” a hesitant voice announced.
> 
> Negan’s sigh scorched her face and her skin crawled, but a small vindictive part of her felt smug that he was the first to break their stand-off.
> 
> “Good,” he said lightly. “We’ll get the meeting started in just a bit. _In_ the meantime, I want you to take this woman to the infirmary. Make sure she walks through the door and make sure she stays behind it until the doc says otherwise.”
> 
> “Yes sir.”
> 
> He was dismissing her. It was done.
> 
> “Off you go,” Negan grinned, indulging in some smugness of his own.
> 
> Siann risked one last sneer. With barely a glance at her newest escort she turned away from Negan and marched towards the door, trying desperately not to think just how stupid she had been to believe she could have done anything but make things worse.
> 
> “Siann,” Negan called.
> 
> Siann froze in the doorway, clutching at the frame with white, clenching fingers. She turned back slowly to face him and that insufferable row of teeth. It was a parody of a smile – but she’d never seen it wider.
> 
> “Keep that nose clean,” he winked.
> 
> Not bothering to reach for the pulverised remains of her pride by her feet or mask the fury on her face, Siann swept out of the room, followed closely by the Savior and Negan’s cruel laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I both loved and hated writing this chapter because it sort of got away from me and although it was a lot of fun I was really toeing the line between "conversation following its natural flow" and "ideas wildly jerking me around the place" so...I hope it turned out okay!


End file.
